Training Courses

“... only transition metal organic chemistry can be regarded as a fertile field for synthetic surprises.”
Dieter Seebach
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1990, 29, 1320.

“Anyone who has helped to plan an industrial synthesis tends to pity the poverty of the criteria that academic synthesis must meet.”
Sir John Cornforth
Austr. J. Chem 1993, 46, 157; Aldrichimica Acta 1994, 27, 71.

“The important question is, after the work is done, what do you know that you didn’t know before?”
Gilbert Stork
Cope Symposium Lecture, ACS Anaheim, March, 1999; C & EN, April 5, 1999, p.33.

“ There’s a virtually unexplored chemical universe of an estimated 1062 small drug-like molecules with a molecular weight of less than 500 containing the elements H,C,N,O,P, S, F, Cl, or Br.  We’re never going to make everything anyway, so we may as well try to make things that are easy.”
Barry Sharpless
Cope Symposium, ACS Anaheim 99, C & EN News, April 5 1999, p33

New for this year!

This Course, formerly called 'Cross-Coupling Reactions in Aromatic and Heteroaromatic Synthesis' has been updated to include a whole new section on C-H activation. Learn about the new generation of C-H activation reactions in the field of Aromatic Synthetic Chemistry where they are destined to supercede traditional methods and provide efficiency, economy, clean (green) chemistry for small and large-scale processes.

The overall aim of this course is

a) to provide a conceptual framework for the multitude of reactions currently emanating from the impact of transition metal catalysis on the field of aromatic and heteroaromatic synthesis and to place it into practical perspective;
b) to present a systematic picture of C-C bond coupling methods (Suzuki-Miyaura, Negishi, Kumada-Corriu, Stille, and, most recently, Hiyama) according to hybridization format, e.g. sp2-sp2, sp2-sp3, inter alia
c) to survey other rapidly evolving synthetically promising catalytic processes (Buchwald-Hartwig, Heck, Ullmann, Sonogashira, Grubbs) in a systematic manner using C-N, C-O, C-S formalism;
d) to connect directed ortho metalation (DoM) strategies to these blossoming areas of transition metal catalysed processes;
e) to contrast and compare the above modern processes with classical but still useful synthetic methods.
The desired consequence is the facility (both on paper and in the lab!) to use these modern strategies for the regiospecific construction of polysubstituted aromatic/heteroaromatic systems and for the rational assemblage of complex bioactive molecules and natural products.

Who Should Attend?

This course is aimed at graduate and PhD level research and development production chemists in fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, colour chemicals, flavour and fragrance and intermediate industries.