Better chemistry through radicals

摘要

Reactions that form carbon-carbon (C-C) bonds are essential for synthesizing complex organic molecules from simple, inexpensive precursors. The value that such molecules have as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and materials makes these reactions essential to the practice of organic synthesis. Most classical methods for generating C-C bonds rely on reagents that are either strongly basic or strongly acidic, and some require high temperatures to proceed. Such 'harsh' reaction conditions are incompatible with many functional groups - the groups of atoms responsible for the properties and reactivity of molecules. Functional-group incompatibilities are a major nuisance, because they force chemists to design synthetic routes to target molecules that are circuitous rather than direct. In an exciting development reported on page 343 of this issue, Lo et al. have developed a C-C bond-forming reaction that provides a promising solution to this problem.