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This article describes the development of a second-generation catalyst system for the transannular C-H functionalization of alicyclic amines. Pyridine- and quinoline-carboxylate ligands are shown to be highly effective for increasing the reaction rate, yield, and scope of Pd-catalyzed transannular C-H arylation reactions of azabicyclo[3.1.0]hexane, azabicyclo[3.1.1]heptane, azabicyclo[3.2.1]octane, and piperidine derivatives. Mechanistic studies reveal that the pyridine/quinoline-carboxylates play a role in impeding both reversible and irreversible catalyst decomposition pathways. These ligands enable the first reported examples of the transannular C-H arylation of the ubiquitous tropane, 7-azanorbornane, and homotropane cores. Finally, the pyridine/quinoline-carboxylates are shown to promote both transannular C-H arylation and transannular C-H dehydrogenation on a homotropane substrate.

Discovering pharmaceutical candidates is a resource-intensive enterprise that frequently requires the parallel synthesis of hundreds or even thousands of molecules. C-H bonds are present in almost all pharmaceutical agents. Consequently, the development of selective, rapid and efficient methods for converting these bonds into new chemical entities has the potential to streamline pharmaceutical development. Saturated nitrogen-containing heterocycles (alicyclic amines) feature prominently in pharmaceuticals, such as treatments for depression (paroxetine, amitifadine), diabetes (gliclazide), leukaemia (alvocidib), schizophrenia (risperidone, belaperidone), malaria (mefloquine) and nicotine addiction (cytisine, varenicline). However, existing methods for the C-H functionalization of saturated nitrogen heterocycles, particularly at sites remote to nitrogen, remain extremely limited. Here we report a transannular approach to selectively manipulate the C-H bonds of alicyclic amines at sites remote to nitrogen. Our reaction uses the boat conformation of the substrates to achieve palladium-catalysed amine-directed conversion of C-H bonds to C-C bonds on various alicyclic amine scaffolds. We demonstrate this approach by synthesizing new derivatives of several bioactive molecules, including varenicline.

This report describes the design, synthesis, solubility, and electrochemistry of a series of tris-bipyridine chromium complexes that exhibit up to six reversible redox couples as well as solubilities approaching 1 M in acetonitrile. We have systematically modified both the ligand structure and the oxidation state of these complexes to gain insights into the factors that impact solubility and electrochemistry. The results provide a set of structure-solubility-electrochemistry relationships to guide the future development of electrolytes for nonaqueous flow batteries. In addition, we have identified a promising candidate from the series of chromium complexes for further electrochemical and battery assessment.

Minimally invasive plate osteosynthesis (MIPO) is an effective surgical technique in the repair of humeral and tibial shaft fractures. There is some controversy as to the minimum number of screws required to ensure correct stability to promote healing, especially when dealing with low quality bones. This work compared different systems assembled on synthetic models simulating a comminuted fracture. Group 1 comprised a locking compression plate with four non-locking screws placed at the holes furthest from the fracture. Group 2 differed from group 1 only in the additional use of two screw locking elements (SLE). Group 3 had four rather than two SLE and, finally, Group 4 used 4 locking screws. The compression and torsion tests with static and cyclic loads showed that, in MIPO, two locking screws or two non-locking screws with SLE could be used per segment without any significant loss in stiffness after 1000 cycles, with system stability guaranteed in both cases. However, lower strength and significant loss of stiffness were observed when non-locking screws were used alone., (Copyright © 2014 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This paper reports a room temperature visible light photocatalyzed method for the C-H amination of arenes and heteroarenes. A key enabling advance in this work is the design of N-acyloxyphthalimides as precursors to nitrogen-based radical intermediates for these transformations. A broad substrate scope is presented, including the selective meta-amination of pyridine derivatives. A radical aromatic substitution mechanism is proposed.

A practical, chemoselective oxidation of alcohols employing catalytic quantities of DDQ as the oxidant and Mn(OAc)(3) as the co-oxidant is described. Electron-rich benzylic alcohols are oxidized efficiently to their corresponding carbonyls, but less electron-rich benzylic alcohols remain unchanged. Allylic alcohols are rapidly oxidized to their corresponding aldehyde or ketone counterparts in high yields. This protocol is operationally simple, employs an inexpensive source of Mn(OAc)(3), has short reaction times, and exhibits a significant chemoselectivity favoring allylic alcohols over benzylic alcohols. This procedure also avoids the use of very large excesses of reagents and sometimes poor reproducibility that characterize previously developed reagents such as MnO(2)., (© 2011 American Chemical Society)