Nobel‐Winning Chemistry

Abstract

It can’t be any more timely than to present this issue of the Israel Journal of Chemistry on metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions, so soon after this year’s Nobel Prize Award ceremony in Stockholm recognizing the tremendous impact of “palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling in organic synthesis” and, specifically, the pioneering achievements of Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, and Akira Suzuki. Carbon–carbon bond-forming reactions are arguably the most important synthetic transformations in chemistry, as they represent essential steps in the building of more complex molecules from simple precursors. For many years, organic chemists have been developing a plethora of reactions for carbon–carbon bond formation between molecules with saturated sp3 carbon atoms. However, until the discovery and development of metal-mediated cross-coupling reactions, beginning in the 1970s, there were no simple, general, and direct methodologies available for carbon–carbon bond formation between unsaturated species such as vinyl, aryl, and alkynyl moieties. In the last three decades, this paradigm for carbon–carbon bond construction has allowed chemists with a wide range of interests to assemble complex molecular frameworks encompassing total synthesis of natural products, medicinal chemistry, and industrial process development, as well as chemical biology, materials, and nanotechnology. The emergence of cross-coupling as a popular method in synthesis arises from both the diversity of organometallic reagents utilized in these reactions and the broad range of functional groups which can be incorporated into these reagents. The explosive increase of activity in the field is immediately evident even from a quick search for the keyword “cross-coupling”, which reveals 14,664 papers — more than half of them (8,025) published in the past 5 years. We certainly acknowledge that a single journal issue could not cover all the uses of transition metals in organic synthesis. Instead, this special issue offers a good selection of relevant topics that are, to our judgement, of high importance and general interest, not only to the practitioners in the field but to all chemists. As editors we thank all the contributors for their efforts, which have made this important and timely endeavor possible. 1 1 Ilan Marek Guest Editor Mark Gandelman Guest Editor