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Nitrogen deletion offers fresh strategy for organic synthesis

Many scientific fields and industries rely on the synthesis of small organic molecules. A chemical reagent has been developed that allows such molecules to be made by ‘deleting’ nitrogen atoms from readily accessible precursors.
  1. William P. Unsworth

    1. William P. Unsworth is in the Department of Chemistry, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK.

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  2. Alyssa-Jennifer Avestro

    1. Alyssa-Jennifer Avestro is in the Department of Chemistry, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK.

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In a paper in Nature, Kennedy et al.1 report a strategy for molecular editing in which nitrogen atoms are ‘deleted’ from organic molecules. The idea of deleting, rather than adding, atoms to molecules runs counter to the way chemists usually think about making organic molecules (with a few notable exceptions; see ref. 2, for example) . But the authors’ reactions could dramatically change the way in which such synthesis is planned.

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Nature 593, 203-204 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01205-6

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