C–H bond breakers seek smarter tools
A recent article in Chemical & Engineering News covers the development of reactions that allow chemists to zero in on specific C–H bonds, enabling them to build complex compounds such as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals.
MSU professor Mitch Smith’s ground breaking discovery of Ir-catalyzed Câ€H borylation (CHB) reactions, set in motion research that expanded CHBs into a popular synthetic method among industrial and academic labs alike.
The embrace of CHBs was fostered by an ACS-Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable and NSF funded collaboration between Merck & MSU. That grant provided MSU graduate students studying with Professors Mitch Smith & Rob Maleczka and Merck scientists the opportunity to work together.
As Shane Krska (Merck) described in the article “Mitch and Rob’s students were coming to Merck, using our high-throughput experimentation facilities to screen reactions and to improve on the methods,” Krska says. “When the industry team members saw that chemistry up close, they realized that these methods were robust, and a light bulb went off that ‘this is something we could envision using here at Merck.”
