Award Address (Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry, sponsored by Elsevier). Synthesis of large and small molecules using olefin metathesis

ORGN 243

Robert H Grubbs, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91125
Olefin metathesis has become a method for the synthesis of a variety of highly functionalized bioactive molecules and polymeric structures. Key to these developments has been a family of ruthenium complexes that tolerate a wide variety of functional groups and experimental conditions. The functional group tolerance has resulted in the use of these catalysts in a wide variety of ring closing, cross metathesis reaction and polymerization reactions. Detailed understanding of the mechanisms of these catalysts has resulted in the developments of systems that will induce metathesis of a number of olefins containing polar functional groups. Many reactions, especially cross metathesis reactions, can be run with out solvent, with very low catalyst loadings and with high selectivity. The rapid creation of complex molecules from simple precursors has resulted in the use of this reaction in the generation of scaffolds for drug libraries. In addition, the same catalysts can be used to produce a variety of new polymeric structures