Claisen rearrangement over the past nine decades.

Stereocontrol in the synthesis of acyclic systems: applications to natural product synthesis

Nucleophilic and organometallic displacement reactions of allylic compounds: stereo-and regiochemistry

Natural products have been a rich source of agents of value in medicine. They have also inspired, at various levels, the fashioning of nonnatural agents of pharmaceutical import. Hitherto, these nonnatural derivatives have been primarily synthesized by manipulating the natural product. As a consequence of major innovations in the subscience of synthetic methodology, the capacity of synthesis to deal with molecules of considerable complexity has increased dramatically. In this paper, we show by example some total syntheses which draw from strategy-enabling advances in methodology. Moreover, we show how these capabilities can be used to discover and develop new agents of potential pharmaceutical value without recourse to the natural product itself.

Small molecule natural products in the discovery of therapeutic agents: the synthesis connection.

The synthesis of insect sex phermones

Simple stereoselective version of the Claisen rearrangement leading to trans-trisubstituted olefinic bonds. Synthesis of squalene

Olefinic ketal Claisen reaction. Facile route to juvenile hormone

Further developments in the nonenzymic biogenetic-like steroid synthesis.

Synthesis of veratramine

Nonenzymic, biogenetic-like cyclization of a tetraenic acetal to produce the D-homosteroid nucleus

William S. Johnson

Papers

Simple stereoselective version of the Claisen rearrangement leading to trans-trisubstituted olefinic bonds. Synthesis of squalene

Olefinic ketal Claisen reaction. Facile route to juvenile hormone

Further developments in the nonenzymic biogenetic-like steroid synthesis.

Synthesis of veratramine

Nonenzymic, biogenetic-like cyclization of a tetraenic acetal to produce the D-homosteroid nucleus