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Late-stage tritiation with high selectivity, isotopic purity and functional-group tolerance is important for the radiolabelling of drug candidates or bioactive compounds. Now, a broadly applicable protocol using aryl thianthrenium salts allows for tritiation of complex molecules by hydrogenolysis via an intermediate cationic palladium complex.
Iterative synthesis can generalize, automate and democratize the molecule-making process. Now, by using a computer algorithm to scan the depths of chemical reactivity space, thousands of iterative ways to make small molecules are discovered.