Garg and Houk research team findings featured in C&EN and JACS Spotlights.
The research team of Dr. Travis McMahon, Jose Medina (Garg Group), Dr. Yun-Fang Yang (Houk Group), Bryan Simmons (Garg Group) and Prof. Ken Houk, reported on the generation of the first 3,4-piperidyne and its use as a building block for the synthesis of annulated piperidines in their paper published in the Journal of American Chemistry Society (JACS). Their research was recently highlighted in Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) and the (JACS) Spotlights.
The UCLA research team: Dr. Travis McMahon, Jose Medina, Dr. Yun-Fang Yang, Bryan Simmons, Prof. Ken Houk, Prof. Neil Garg
Excerpt from “Piperidynes Take A New Number” in Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN) (By Stephen K. Ritter)
Organic Synthesis: The first example of a 3,4-piperidyne opens up a new path to preparing nitrogen heterocycles as drug candidates Nitrogen-containing heterocycles make up about 60% of FDA-approved small-molecule drugs, with piperidines being the most common. With the aim of synthesizing new functionalized piperidines, UCLA’s Neil K. Garg, Kendall N. Houk, and coworkers wondered if the unusual molecule 3,4-piperidyne could be generated and used as a synthetic building block. 
Read the full C&EN Article here. Excerpt from “Drug Scaffolds—Straightforward through Strain” in the Journal of American Chemistry Society (JACS) Spotlights (by Sonja Krane, Ph.D.): Neil Garg, K. N. Houk, and co-workers report the first synthesis of 3,4-piperidyne, an intermediate that is useful in the construction of annulated piperidines (DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5b01589). Piperidines are among the most common N-heterocycles found in therapeutic small molecules; in fact, over 70 drugs approved by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration, including a number of blockbuster drugs, incorporate piperidines. “Our findings not only provide a new platform to access medicinally privileged piperidine scaffolds, but also lay the foundation for further studies geared toward strategically harnessing strained heterocyclic alkynes as useful synthetic building blocks,” the authors conclude. Read the full JACS spotlight article here. To learn more visit the Garg Group and Houk Group homepages.
Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) is a weekly magazine providing professional and technical information in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering. The Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal. Both are published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), a scientific society founded in 1876 to support scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry.
