The articles from the Optimization in Chemical Synthesis symposium include contributions from Professors Matthais Beller, Carston Bolm, Gilbert Stork, and Paul Wender. Synthetic issues are presented with an emphasis on stereoselectivity, enantioselectivity, atom economy, the invention of new reactions to achieve desired biologically active templates, and recent advances in catalysis. Professor Victor Snieckus provides an introductory perspective to this series of articles.
The articles from the Methodologies for Parallel Array Medicinal Chemistry symposium include contributions from Professors David Bergbreiter, Dennis Curran, and Drs. Daniel Flynn, Aubrey Mendonca, and Daniel Pilipauskas. Strategies for controlling phase isolation of products and phase-switching of other reaction species are presented, with emphasis on resin capture techniques, fluorous-phase synthesis, soluble polymers which exhibit interesting phase-switching properties, and polymer-supported building blocks (reactants). An article is included on the practical use of experimental design tools (once the domain of process chemistry optimization) to help practitioners of parallel synthesis identify optimized, validated reaction sequences more quickly.
We thank all of the contributing editors for their willingness to provide this series of stimulating articles and trust that you, the reader, will find their content useful and relevant to your own research endeavors.