Design and development of efficient and greener strategies for heterocycle synthesis

Abstract

In the last few decades, rapid progress has been made in synthetic organic chemistry, which has been explored in a dramatic way. A large number of several highly selective methods have been developed allowing the preparation of complex molecules in highly regio-, chemo-, diastereo- and enantioselective manner, and it has been possible to accomplish synthesis of highly complex naturally occurring compounds in several distinct steps. One of the most outstanding synthesis is that of palytoxin, reported by Kishi with 64 stereogenic centers in more than 100 steps (Chart 1).1 However despite this great progress and its importance, the image of chemistry has been deteriorated in public. This is mainly due to the increasing consciousness regarding environmental issues in our society, which feels that chemistry and chemical production, are adversely affecting the ecological balance.