Organic synthesis is changing; in a world where budgets are constrained and the environmental impacts of practice are scrutinized, it is increasingly recognized that the efficient use of human resource is just as important as material use. New technologies and machines have found use as methods for transforming the way we work, addressing these issues encountered in research laboratories by enabling chemists to adopt a more holistic systems approach in their work. Modern developments in this area promote a multi-disciplinary approach and work is more efficient as a result. This Review focuses on the concepts, procedures and methods that have far-reaching implications in the chemistry world. Technologies have been grouped as topics of opportunity and their recent applications in innovative research laboratories are described.

In this Review we describe how the advent of machines is impacting on organic synthesis programs, with particular emphasis on the practical issues associated with the design of chemical reactors. In the rapidly changing, multivariant environment of the research laboratory, equipment needs to be modular to accommodate high and low temperatures and pressures, enzymes, multiphase systems, slurries, gases, and organometallic compounds. Additional technologies have been developed to facilitate more specialized reaction techniques such as electrochemical and photochemical methods. All of these areas create both opportunities and challenges during adoption as enabling technologies.

BET bromodomains are unique targeting modules that mediate primary transcription response.

SummaryA great deal of time is spent within synthetic chemistry laboratories on non-value-adding activities such as sample preparation and work-up operations, and labour intensive activities such as extended periods of continued data collection. Using digital cameras connected to computer vision algorithms, camera-enabled apparatus can perform some of these processes in an automated fashion, allowing skilled chemists to spend their time more productively. In this review we describe recent advances in this field of chemical synthesis and discuss how they will lead to advanced synthesis laboratories of the future.

SummaryHere we describe the use of a new open-source software package and a Raspberry Pi® computer for the simultaneous control of multiple flow chemistry devices and its application to a machine-assisted, multi-step flow preparation of pyrazine-2-carboxamide – a component of Rifater®, used in the treatment of tuberculosis – and its reduced derivative piperazine-2-carboxamide.