Themed collection In Celebration of Max Malacria’s 65th Birthday

Professor Max Malacria, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC), is celebrating his 65th birthday this year, and this themed collection marks this exciting occasion.

Cycloaddition reactions are powerful tools in synthetic chemistry.

Chopping of carbon–carbon bonds was very recently shown to be an efficient new strategy for the synthesis of organonitriles, as developed in this Highlight.

Nonafluoro-t-butyl propyl (1), allyl (2), and propargyl (3) ethers as well as bis(nonafluoro-t-butoxy) ethane (4), propane (5), and butane (6) were prepared by the reaction of sodium nonafluoro-t-butoxide (7) with the corresponding alkyl halides.

We describe here step-economical, function-oriented strategies towards the syntheses of potent kinase inhibitors inspired by the natural product staurosporine.

The first example of the application of a chiral DMAP catalyst for allylic substitution of MBH carbonates.

Organic soluble TBA₅K[α₁Hf(H₂O)₄P₂W₁₇O₆₁] (POM/Hf) catalyzes the addition of pronucleophiles (silylenolethers, diketones, ketoesters, allylsilane) to unactivated hemiaminals.

A metal-free reductive procedure for decyanation of malononitriles and cyanoacetates, using photoactivated organic electron donors, is described.

Palladium-catalyzed amino and oxyacetoxylation have been developed to furnish 1,4-benzodiazepinones and 1,4-benzoxazepinones through the diheterofunctionalization of alkenes.

Enantioselective synthesis of a key intermediate to (−)-huperzine A by Pd-catalyzed tandem allylic alkylation using a novel monodentate phosphoramidite ligand.

Efficient glycosylation reactions of peracetylated β-D-N-acetyl glycosamines are described using catalytic iron(III) triflate under microwave conditions or in a continuous flow process.

Near-infrared absorbing heterocyclic quinoid molecules have been developed as donor materials for organic photovoltaic devices.

Polycyclic aromatics undergo [4 + 4] photocycloaddition to give tricyclic polyene products.

Aliphatic aldehydes are readily transformed to the corresponding esters by oxidative carbene catalysis.

A sequence of Mukaiyama aldol and radical hydrogen transfer reactions was applied to α-alkoxy and α-aminoaldehydes for the synthesis of propionate motifs and subunits thereof.

A facile approach for the synthesis of benzo[3.1.0]bicycloalkanes via alkylation/cyclopropanation cascade reactions of benzyl bromide with triphenylphosphonium bromide.

A straightforward synthesis of indane derivatives by sequential hydroarylation of 1,3-dienes catalysed by bismuth(III) triflate is presented.

Radical vinylation of 1,3-dioxolanes and N-acylpyrrolidines using vinyl bromides with an electron-withdrawing substituent proceeded well to give the vinylated products.

The intermolecular gold(I)-catalyzed reactions of propargyl carboxylates, 1,6-enynes, or 7-substituted 1,3,5-cycloheptatrienes with furans afford cyclopentenones, polyenes or polycyclic compounds by related mechanisms initiated by the electrophilic addition of gold(I) carbenes to furans followed by ring-opening.

A metal-free procedure is described for the aerobic and complete C–H methylene oxidation of Hajos–Parrish enones to versatile dihydroindenediones.

β-Cyclodextrin conjugated to adamantane forms self-inclusion complexes instead of supramolecular polymers.

A high-yielding approach for the diastereoselective syntheses of the four (5′S)- and (5′R)-5′,8-cyclopurine lesions and their phosphoramidites has been developed.

Intramolecular homolytic substitution reactions of 5-(alkylseleno)pentyl radicals 4 have been investigated by competition kinetics as well as computational techniques.

Polymerization of thiophene with a Ni(II) catalyst through halogen dance leads to a new class of polythiophenes.

Ligand (L*), chloride scavenger (M), and counterion (Y) effects have been studied in unprecedented asymmetric gold-catalyzed hydroalkylation of unactivated alkenes.

After investigation of their photophysical properties, the catalytic activities of various cyclometalated iridium(III) complexes bearing a dipyridylamine as the N^N ligand have been evaluated in a model photoredox reaction.

Visible-light photocatalytic oxidation of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds using Ru(bpy)₃Cl₂, molecular oxygen and triphenylcarbenium, has been developed for carbon–carbon bond formation giving access to dimerization, allylation and polycyclization products.

The synthesis and characterization of [2]rotaxanes containing ESR active nitroxide labels as stoppers and tetrathiafulvalene or 1,5-dioxynaphthalene units as molecular stations are reported.

[RuCl₂(p-cymene)]₂ efficiently catalyzes the rearrangement of allenic sulfides bearing the propargyl moiety to afford 1,2,4-trisubstituted benzene derivatives.

An efficient copper-mediated three-component reaction of one molecule of amine and two molecules of nitriles affording fully substituted 1,2,4-triazoles has been developed.

The efficient and scalable synthesis of a valuable vinylcyclopropane (VCP) building block, which circumvents several problems encountered in previous syntheses, has been developed.