New Developments in Ni-Catalyzed Transnitrilation

Accessing medicinally relevant small molecules in a more efficient and/or safer manner continues to drive important discoveries in synthetic organic chemistry. My group is particularly interested in the development of new Ni-catalyzed processes to address these challenges and the use of readily available building blocks to access complex small molecules.

The preparation of nitrile-containing organic molecules has garnered considerable attention from the community for over a century due to their prevalence in pharmaceuticals and their versatility as synthetic intermediates. In this field, the use of toxic cyanide salts (and their equivalents) or HCN as a source of nitrile to forge C–CN bonds remains a problem.  To address this challenge, my group is developing new synthetic methods that use inexpensive and less toxic nitrile-transfer reagents for the synthesis of these compounds. We have demonstrated that valuable nitrile-containing building blocks can be prepared based on the concept of nitrile-transfer (or “transnitrilation”).1,2 This presentation will highlight our contributions to this field, with a particular focus on the development of Ni-catalyzed methods for the synthesis of nitriles.2

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