Huisgen and His Adventures in a Playground of Mechanisms and Novel Reactions

Abstract

The death of professor Rolf Huisgen (1920-2020) was announced on March 26th 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Huisgen was professor emeritus at the University of Munich in Germany, and studied in detail the mechanism of the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction, significantly expanding its scope. Even though he did not discover this reaction, it was through his studies that it became important in organic synthesis. Indeed, in honor of his work, the reaction became known as Huisgen’s cycloaddition and it has been consolidated as a useful method for the preparation of five-membered heterocyclic compounds. Considering these facts, in this review we provide an overview on the applications of 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions, starting with the seminal examples in the field and further discussing the most recent applications.