is currently a senior in the undergraduate chemistry department at The University of Texas. He has been working in the Dong Lab since summer of 2013 and will receive his bachelors degree in the spring of 2014. He expects to enter graduate school for organic chemistry in the fall of 2014. AbstractThis highlight review describes the recent progress in alcohol or masked alcohol-directed CH functionalization, which enables rapid access to a large array of complex structures. Given the ubiquity of the hydroxy group in organic chemistry, these types of transformations may have significant impacts on synthetic strategy design.

Nuclear receptor-binding SET domain-containing 2 (NSD2) plays important roles in gene regulation, largely through its ability to dimethylate lysine 36 of histone 3 (H3K36me2). Despite aberrant activity of NSD2 reported in numerous cancers, efforts to selectively inhibit the catalytic activity of this protein with small molecules have been unsuccessful to date. Here, we report the development of UNC8153, a novel NSD2-targeted degrader that potently and selectively reduces the cellular levels of both NSD2 protein and the H3K36me2 chromatin mark. UNC8153 contains a simple warhead that confers proteasome-dependent degradation of NSD2 through a novel mechanism. Importantly, UNC8153-mediated reduction of H3K36me2 through the degradation of NSD2 results in the downregulation of pathological phenotypes in multiple myeloma cells including mild antiproliferative effects in MM1.S cells containing an activating point mutation and antiadhesive effects in KMS11 cells harboring the t(4;14) translocation that upregulates NSD2 expression.

Scavenging fluoride from a selenophosphoramide-catalyzed alkene oxidation reaction suppresses the known syn-elimination pathway, enabling alkene diamination/oxyamination reactions via substitution.

Phosphine selenides are introduced as an alternate class of selenium-based catalysts for the aza-Heck reaction of alkenes. Using these catalysts, a range of terminal alkenes react with NFBS to give oxidative amination products. Judicious choice of phosphine ligand gives greater regio-and stereoselectivity than with diphenyl diselenide, enabling the selective formation of E terminal enimides in high yields. Isotope-labeling experiments and measurements of kinetic isotope effects reveal that the reaction occurs stereospecifically via irreversible anti addition, followed by rate-determining syn elimination.