Dedicated to Professor Fraser Stoddart on the occasion of his 70th birthdayIngenious new template-directed strategies make it possible to synthesize an increasingly wide range of molecular architectures, which would otherwise be inaccessible. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Recently, we developed the concept of Vernier templating-the use of noncommensurate combinations of templates and building blocks to direct the formation of cyclic oligomers, such that the number of binding sites in the product is the lowest common multiple of the numbers of sites in the template and the starting material. [12d] This principle allows a small template to direct the formation of a much larger macrocycle. Previously, we illustrated this idea with the synthesis of a 12-porphyrin nanoring, c-P12, from a linear zinc porphyrin tetramer, l-P4, and a hexapyridyl template, T6.Here we report the synthesis of a 24-porphyrin ring, c-P24, by two Vernier-templated routes: a) coupling the linear porphyrin octamer l-P8 in the presence of hexapyridyl template T6, and b) coupling the linear porphyrin hexamer l-P6 in the presence of the octapyridyl template T8 (Scheme 1). The 24porphyrin nanoring can be prepared in yields of up to 25 %. It has a diameter of 10 nm, as confirmed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and a molecular weight of 26 kDa, thus placing it in the size range of a typical protein. This flexible macrocycle can be locked into a planar p-conjugated conformation by the cooperative self-assembly of a 2:24 doublestrand complex with the linear diamine ligand 1,4diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO).The representation of the two routes to c-P24 in Scheme 1 overlooks the fact that complexes such as (l-P8) 3 ·(T6) 4 and c-P24·(T6) 4 have many possible isomers, as illustrated in Figure 1. However, the formation of these isomeric intermediates should not detract from the efficiency of the Vernier-templated synthesis, because removal of the template will convert all these isomers into the same c-P24 open ring (except for knotted structures, for example, Figure 1 d [13] ).Palladium-catalyzed oxidative coupling of the linear porphyrin octamer l-P8 [12a] in the presence of the hexapyridyl template T6 [12b,c] gave the expected product c-P24, together with the 16-porphyrin ring c-P16 [14] and linear polymers, all as complexes with T6. The polymeric by-products were removed Scheme 1. a) Vernier-templated synthesis of the nanoring c-P24. Reagents: 1) [PdCl 2 (PPh 3 ) 2 ], CuI, benzoquinone, iPr 2 NH; 2) pyridine. b) Structures of T6, T8, and c-P24; Ar = 3,5-bis(octyloxy)phenyl. Figure 1. Four examples of possible isomers of c-P24·(T6) 4 . [13]