Rare-earth half-sandwiches prove rewarding
Friday, May 18, 2012 - 09:01
in Physics & Chemistry
The chemical frameworks of natural productsmolecules generated by biological organismshave inspired many of todays most potent pharmaceuticals. But the complexity of these compounds makes time-consuming tricks necessary to produce them at large scales. Bing-Tao Guan and Zhaomin Hou from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako, however, have developed a rare-earth catalyst system that promises to make natural product synthesis significantly easier by enabling direct modification of aromatic pyridine compounds.