Novel reactions that can selectively functionalize carbon-hydrogen bonds are of intense interest to the chemical community because they offer new strategic approaches for synthesis. A very promising 'carbon-hydrogen functionalization' method involves the insertion of metal carbenes and nitrenes into C-H bonds. This area has experienced considerable growth in the past decade, particularly in the area of enantioselective intermolecular reactions. Here we discuss several facets of these kinds of C-H functionalization reactions and provide a perspective on how this methodology has affected the synthesis of complex natural products and potential pharmaceutical agents.I n 2006, 31 new chemical entities were introduced to the world pharmaceutical market and 2,075 molecules were in phase I or II of clinical development 1 . The majority of these were smallmolecule (relative molecular mass ,1,000) organic compounds 2 . As knowledge about the specific interactions of drugs in vivo increases, often so does the structural complexity of new drug targets. A major obstacle to the development of such drugs is the difficulty associated with synthesizing large quantities in an economical fashion, because complex multi-step syntheses are usually required. In the general media, it is often overlooked that the accessibility of the components required for these new treatments will often govern their eventual success or failure. Likewise, a design element of any pharmaceutical agent is the expectation that the target compounds can be made economically. Therefore, new strategies for synthesis can become enabling technologies, making available new targets and materials that would have been previously out of range. For example, new methodologies such as metal-catalysed crosscoupling 3 and olefin metathesis 4-6 have rapidly become central transformations in the synthesis of new pharmaceutical agents. Selective C-H functionalization is a class of reactions that could lead to a paradigm shift in organic synthesis, relying on selective modification of ubiquitous C-H bonds of organic compounds instead of the standard approach of conducting transformations on pre-existing functional groups. The reactive sites in each type of transformation are very different, as illustrated in Fig. 1.The many opportunities associated with C-H functionalization has made this field an active area of research. Organometallic chemists have focused much attention on developing 'C-H activation' strategies, whereby a highly reactive metal complex inserts into a C-H bond, activating the system for subsequent transformations 7-9 . One of the major challenges associated with this chemistry has been to render it catalytic in the metal complex 10 . A partial solution to this problem has been to use neighbouring functionality to direct less reactive metal complexes to the site for functionalization. Numerous reviews have been written about this method for C-H functionalization [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] . Here, however, we highlight another approach, in which a divalent c...

Inhibition of mutant IDH1 is being evaluated clinically as a promising treatment option for various cancers with hotspot mutation at Arg. Having identified an allosteric, induced pocket of IDH1, we have explored 3-pyrimidin-4-yl-oxazolidin-2-ones as mutant IDH1 inhibitors for modulation of 2-HG production and potential brain penetration. We report here optimization efforts toward the identification of clinical candidate (), a potent and selective mutant IDH1 inhibitor that has demonstrated brain exposure in rodents. Preclinical characterization of this compound exhibited correlation of 2-HG reduction and efficacy in a patient-derived IDH1 mutant xenograft tumor model. () has progressed into human clinical trials for the treatment of cancers with IDH1 mutation.

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A method is described for the asymmetric synthesis of 4-substituted indoles from the Rh2(S-DOSP)4-catalyzed decomposition of vinyldiazoacetates in the presence of N-Boc-4-acetoxy-6,7-dihydroindole. The reaction proceeds via a combined C-H activation/Cope rearrangement-elimination mechanism resulting in good yields and very high asymmetric induction.

The aza-Cope–Mannich reaction and ring-closing metathesis are key steps in the assembly of intermediates containing rings A–D of Daphniphyllum alkaloids of the daphnicyclidin-type such as daphnipaxinin and oldhamine A.