A highly general palladium catalysed regioselective hydroalkynylation of ynamides for versatile enamide building blocks with an alkyne tether is achieved with an N-substitution dependent stereoselectivity switch under very mild reaction conditions.

A novel palladium-catalyzed approach to 2-benzofuranyl/indolylacetamides from 1-(o-hydroxy/aminophenyl)propargylic alcohols and isocyanides is described. The reaction proceeds through a cascade that includes oxy/aminopalladation, isocyanide insertion, and 1,4-hydroxyl migration. No oxidant or ligand is needed to promote the cascade, and the reactions are carried out under mild conditions to afford the products through high functional tolerance.

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Addition of arylboronic acids to directing group tethered acetylenes in a regio and stereoselective manner using an inexpensive catalytic system is achieved for the first time to access highly sought after allyl/homoallyl alcohol/amine units. The apparent vinylnickel intermediate was successfully trapped by the Michael electrophiles to get defined tri- and tetra-substituted olefins. An interesting selectivity switch was observed with internal alkynes.

Conjugated enynes, enol ethers, and enynones are versatile building blocks that can be elaborated by a wide variety of synthetic transformations. The selective synthesis of such units is a prerequisite for their effective utilization. The synthesis of conjugated 2-phenoxyenynes through a palladium-catalyzed cross-addition of terminal alkynes to phenylethynyl ethers (hydroalkynylation) is now presented. The reaction is highly regio-, stereo-, and chemoselective, and shows excellent tolerance toward functional groups. The addition further features very mild reaction conditions (room temperature) and an inexpensive catalytic system (without a ligand and with a cheaply available Pd catalyst). The thus synthesized enynyl ethers with allylic hydroxy tethers, which survived the reaction, were shown to be ready precursors for valuable 1-en-4-yn-3-ones.

A convenient and general synthesis of various 4-substituted 3-iodocoumarins and 4,5-disubstituted 3-iodobutenolides is described via an exclusive 6-endo-dig iodocyclization of 3-ethoxy-1-(2-alkoxyphenyl)-2-yn-1-ols and 5-endo-dig iodocyclization of 1-alkoxy-4-ethoxy-3-yn-1,2-diols, respectively. The reaction is carried out under very mild conditions using I2 in CH2Cl2 or toluene at room temperature. Oxygens in OMe and OMOM groups were used as efficient nucleophiles for this intramolecular cyclization to obtain the products in good to excellent yields.

Synthesis of Z-β-aryl-α,β-unsaturated esters from readily available 1-aryl-3-phenoxy propargyl alcohols is achieved via a BF3-mediated syn-selective Meyer-Schuster rearrangement under ambient conditions. The reaction mechanism is postulated to involve an electrophilic borylation of an allene intermediate as the key step to kinetically control the stereoselectivity.

Jaehoon Sim was nominated to be part of this collection by EurJOC Board Member Sungwoo HongUnnatural amino acids are important scaffolds for novel drug candidates, and especially α-alkyl amino acids have emerged as a valuable variant. This is due to the ubiquity of alkyl groups, which are pervasive as key motifs in natural products, biological and pharmaceutical molecules. The development of radicalbased approaches in organic synthesis has expanded dramatically in recent years. It has enabled site-and region-specific installation of a variety of functionalities in small molecules, which has been spontaneously applied in the preparation of versatile amino acid building blocks. The glycine motif in the backbone of amino acids has gained significant attention for allowing access to a variety of complex α-unnatural amino acids via radical-mediated α-CÀ H alkylation. This review summarizes the last decade's development of radical-based α-CÀ H alkylation of glycine derivatives to provide unnatural α-amino acids. The advantages, current limitations, and perspectives of glycine-based unnatural amino acid synthesis are also discussed.