In the past several years, increasingly selective chemical methods have emerged to append different groups to specific sites along the periphery of aromatic rings. Two recent studies focus instead on manipulating the ring framework itself. Donohoe and Bower show that a widely used olefin metathesis catalyst can direct the formation of furan rings by stitching together an enone and an allylic alcohol. An advantage of this process is the ease with which diverse functional groups can be introduced through substitution of the precursors.
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