From palladium to iodine - towards sustainable catalysis for late-stage functionalisation and New functional groups for synthetic and discovery chemistry

"From palladium to iodine -towards sustainable catalysis for late-stage functionalisation"

Late-stage functionalisation is a powerful tool in organic synthesis. For many years, transition metals have been key players in this area, enabling access to complex molecules with a multitude of elegant, selective transformations. This talk will explore our journey from palladium-catalysed alkene functionalisation to metal-free, iodine-mediated transformations in a quest for more sustainable catalysis.

"New functional groups for synthetic and discovery chemistry"

Sulfur functional groups have had a significant impact in medicinal chemistry and agrochemistry, and feature in molecules that are active against a broad range of biological targets. Despite this utility, the synthetic chemistry of sulfur functional groups is dominated by traditional methods, such as electrophilic aromatic substitution and sulfide oxidation, and although these methods can be effective, they also have many limitations. Addressing these limitations prompted us to start exploring the synthetic chemistry of sulfur dioxide, and related aza-sulfur reagents, and in turn, has led to the development of a series of new reactions and catalytic processes.

This talk will demonstrate the utility of the Lewis adduct, DABCO-bis(sulfur dioxide), as a bench-stable solid reagent that can function as a sulfur dioxide surrogate, and how it can be used in new catalytic reactions to access sulfinates, sulfonamides and sulfonyl fluorides. We will also consider the aza-analogues of sulfur dioxide, called sulfinyl amines (R-NSO), and explore how these can be used to prepare a range of aza-sulfur(VI)-derivatives. Finally, we will consider the double aza-variants of these reagents, R-N=S=N-R, and show that these sulfurdimines can be used to access new chemical space.