During the past five years, our lab and others have demonstrated the power of directing auxiliaries in catalytic alkene functionalization. While highly enabling in their own right, these auxiliaries require additional steps for installation and removal, which detracts from their practical utility. In an effort to overcome this issue, we are excited to disclose the first successful demonstration of co-catalytic “transient” directing groups in asymmetric Heck-type migratory insertion in a paper that appears today in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Under simple reaction conditions, a commercially available amino acid is able to reversibly condense with an aldehyde on the substrate and guide aryl addition to the β-position of the styrene-type substrate. Congrats to Luke, Zi-Qi, Van, and Ruohan from our lab; and our computational collaborator Tuğçe from the Liu Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. In case anyone missed it, a pre-print of this work was deposited in ChemRxiv back in September (click here).

For a link to the paper, see: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202001069

The group’s latest collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb describing a palladium(0)-catalyzed α-selective hydroarylation of acrylates and acrylamides is now online at ChemRxiv. The method achieves this unusual mode of regioselectivity via the intermediacy of a Pd^II(Ar)(H) intermediate, as supported by kinetics, in situ ³¹P NMR, and other experiments. The utility of the method is underscored by the fact that it can be run in an open-flask fashion, can employ water as a cosolvent, and can tolerate a variety of heterocycles and base-sensitive functional groups. Congrats to Alena and John from the Engle lab, and Candice and Emily from BMS!

For a link to the pre-print, click here: https://chemrxiv.org/articles/Catalytic_-Hydroarylation_of_Acrylates_and_Acrylamides_via_an_Interrupted_Hydro-Dehalogenation_Reaction/12003444

 Congrats to Kane Xu, a former high school intern in the Engle lab and current junior at Del Norte High School, presented his summer research on copper-catalyzed alkene hydroboration at the 2020 Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair. Kane was recognized with a 2nd-place distinction in the chemistry category. Way to go!

This week Eli Lilly announced that Keary has been selected for a 2020 Organic Chemistry Award, providing two-years of funding to support ongoing and new research projects in the Engle. Huge thanks to Eli Lilly for this recognition and honor!

During the past five years, there has been an explosion of interest in nickel-catalyzed alkene dicarbofunctionalization reactions. In an invited minireview article appearing today in Chemical Science, Team Nickel from our group summarizes recent advances and highlights lingering challenges in this exciting research area. Congrats to Joe, Omar, Taeho, and Van, and thanks to the journal editors for the opportunity to write this synopsis.

For a link to the article, click here: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/sc/c9sc06006e#!divAbstract