info:doi/10.1038/440390c 2006-03-23T00:00:00Z 2006-03-23T00:00:00Z Emma Marris © 2006 Nature Publishing Group Nature 440 7083 390 391 0028-0836 1476-4679 (?-mix:\s+\W+|\W+\s+|\s+|\/) at hydrogen University think carbon says published lab would has will Sames because something have chemists field wrong make which group results don't atoms replace more papers say work exciting Sezen applications bonds functionalization years any news unlikely get between his C–H New Columbia ten molecules "I Berkeley strong student damaged third dozens hitting even carbon-bound Robert practical launched attached laments aims given replacing synthetic new Bonds postdoc instead blunt targeted interesting survey hit ever out bond Sames's "This anyone reusable withdraw people all Piscataway Beng Jersey almost recent repeat co-author author Williams reactions selectivity techniques else part going employing Rutgers into chemical York drawn organic right." prepared asked she retraction reproduce processes specific badly year left Travis two shadow do headache particular Bergman meanwhile investigation technique no method breaking industrial Goldman up Unfortunately world such break outrageous furore ago indiscriminately materials art Dalibor every decision Such right Alan atom lustre pharmaceuticals area's catalytic there under "If Chemist delicate approach Most another graduate should since said California come catalysts unwanted cut been matter they seems raw unable I retractions about phenyl am always whether fuels fashion molecule serious stands five sanguine elsewhere supervision attention sorry commercial dim "There ubiquitous cast But hundreds (?-mix:\.\s+(?=[A-Z])) But the furore seems unlikely to dim the area's lustre Chemist Robert Bergman at the University of California, Berkeley, is sanguine about the technique breaking out of the lab. "If you asked people ten years ago whether anyone would ever come up with a catalytic method to do this, they would have said no Columbia University, meanwhile, has launched an investigation into the matter C–H functionalization — the art of replacing carbon-bound hydrogen atoms in organic molecules with something more interesting — is unlikely to be badly damaged. "There are dozens, even hundreds, of exciting papers published every year," says Alan Goldman of Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, author of a recent survey of the field. "I don't think the retractions will cast any shadow." Bonds between carbon and hydrogen atoms are ubiquitous in the raw materials from which synthetic chemists make new molecules I don't think it is outrageous to say that in five or ten years there will be commercial applications." "This should have hit the news because it was right and exciting, instead of hitting the news because it was wrong," laments Travis Williams, a postdoc in the field at Berkeley. "I am sorry that the world is going to think that chemists get it wrong, because, almost always, chemists get it right." Most techniques will indiscriminately break all such bonds in any given molecule Sames says in his retraction that his group at Columbia University in New York has been unable to reproduce the published results since graduate student and co-author Bengü Sezen left the lab Sezen stands by the results and says that she is prepared to repeat the work under Sames's supervision Such selectivity would have practical applications in industrial processes to make pharmaceuticals or fuels The decision by Dalibor Sames to withdraw two published papers and part of a third has drawn unwanted attention to the chemical field of C–H functionalization The work at the Sames lab and elsewhere aims to replace this blunt approach with something more delicate: employing reusable catalysts to fashion reactions targeted at specific bonds Unfortunately, it is a serious headache to cut the strong bond between a particular hydrogen atom and the carbon to which it is attached and replace that hydrogen with something else: another carbon, say, or a phenyl group info:doi/10.1021/ja045402b info:doi/10.1021/ja050269o info:doi/10.1021/ja042510p 1