Fluorination reactions are essential to modern medicinal chemistry, thus providing a means to block site-selective metabolic degradation of drugs and access radiotracers for positron emission tomography imaging. Despite current sophistication in fluorination reagents and processes, the fluorination of unactivated CH bonds remains a significant challenge. Reported herein is a convenient and economic process for direct fluorination of unactivated CH bonds that exploits the hydrogen abstracting ability of a decatungstate photocatalyst in combination with the mild fluorine atom transfer reagent N-fluorobenzenesulfonimide. This operationally straightforward reaction provides direct access to a wide range of fluorinated organic molecules, including structurally complex natural products, acyl fluorides, and fluorinated amino acid derivatives.

O-GlcNAc hydrolase, OGA, removes O-linked N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) from myriad nucleocytoplasmic proteins. Through co-expression and assembly of OGA fragments we determined the 3-D structure of human OGA, revealing an unusual helix exchanged dimer that lays a structural foundation for an improved understanding of substrate recognition and regulation of OGA. Structures of OGA in complex with a series of inhibitors define a precise blueprint for the design of inhibitors having clinical value.

At this stage, I've edited the manuscript for brevity and clarity. Queries are meant to draw your attention to edits, inconsistencies or issues that are unclear. If we just ask you to confirm edits are correct, a simple yes/ok between the brackets will do [Au:OK? Is this what you meant? Edits OK? yes]. If questions are asked, please rephrase/update the manuscript text when addressing queries, so that the message is conveyed to the reader (please do not just type your answer to our query unless it is unclear).As the reviewers noted, the manuscript is in very good shape and most comments and edits are fairly minor. However, there is an outstanding issue that must be addressed before we go forward. Figures 7 and 8 are currently referred to in the text in an alternating fashion (e.g. Figure 7A, 8A, 7B, 8B). This is against our style and might make that part of the manuscript difficult to follow for the reader owing to the need to refer to multiple figures at a time while reading the text. To clarify this issue, I recommend restructuring these figures. To do this, can you provide new chemdraw/PDFs with amended figures, including the following amendments: a. Merge Figures 7A and 8A to create a new 'Figure 7' that shows the methods of introducing CF2H at sp3-carbons. b. Merge figures 7B and 8B to make a new figure 8 that shows the main protocols of introducing CF2H at heteroaromatic carbons. 7C could be shown in it's own small figure (Figure 9) or could be added as panel B in the new figure 8. c. Amend the figure legends accordingly Apologies for another figure change but this is essential to keep the figure callouts in style and I think it will make the figures much easier for the reader to follow. I've asked the art editor to delay redrawing these particular figures until we receive these updated chemdraws/PDFs. If there are any issues with this change, please do let me know as soon as possible and we can discuss further.

Background: Balsam fir produces cis-abienol, a natural product of value to the fragrance industry. Results: We describe the genomics-based discovery of balsam fir cis-abienol synthase. Conclusion: cis-Abienol synthase is a bifunctional diterpene synthase that produces a bicyclic diterpenol in the class II active site. Significance: cis-Abienol synthase is a new enzyme for metabolic engineering of plants or microorganisms to produce high value fragrance compounds.

Late-stage C-H fluorination is an appealing reaction for medicinal chemistry. However, the application of this strategy to process research appears less attractive due to the formation and necessary purification of mixtures of organofluorines. Here we demonstrate that γ-fluoroleucine methyl ester, an intermediate critical to the large-scale synthesis of odanacatib, can be accessed directly from leucine methyl ester using a combination of the decatungstate photocatalyst and N-fluorobenzenesulfonimide in flow. This efficient C-H fluorination reaction compares favorably with several generations of classical γ-fluoroleucine process syntheses.

A mild and selective photocatalytic C-H F-fluorination reaction has been developed that provides direct access toF-fluorinated amino acids. The biodistribution and uptake of three F-labeled leucine analogues via LAT1 mediated transport in several cancer cell lines is reported. Positron emission tomography imaging of mice bearing PC3 (prostate) or U87 (glioma) xenografts using 5-[F]-fluorohomoleucine showed high tumor uptake and excellent tumor visualization, highlighting the utility of this strategy for rapid tracer discovery for oncology.

The relative stereochemistry of the 22-membered marine macrolide dictyostatin, a Taxol-like antimitotic agent, was determined based on a combination of extensive high field NMR studies, including J-based configuration analysis, and molecular modelling.

Nucleoside analogs are commonly used in the treatment of cancer and viral infections. Their syntheses benefit from decades of research but are often protracted, unamenable to diversification, and reliant on a limited pool of chiral carbohydrate starting materials. We present a process for rapidly constructing nucleoside analogs from simple achiral materials. Using only proline catalysis, heteroaryl-substituted acetaldehydes are fluorinated and then directly engaged in enantioselective aldol reactions in a one-pot reaction. A subsequent intramolecular fluoride displacement reaction provides a functionalized nucleoside analog. The versatility of this process is highlighted in multigram syntheses of d- or l-nucleoside analogs, locked nucleic acids, iminonucleosides, and C2′- and C4′-modified nucleoside analogs. This de novo synthesis creates opportunities for the preparation of diversity libraries and will support efforts in both drug discovery and development.