Compounds similar to naturally occurring cyclic nucleotides, like cAMP and cTMP, could medicinally affect biological processes by way of specific phosphodiesterase inhibition.  Specifically this research attempted to synthesize a substituted phenylphosphonate analog of thymidine using Bentrude's methods for preparing thymidine cyclic methyl 3', 5'-phosphite (1) and reacting it with an iodonium salt.  

The iodonium salt reactions used a radical mechanism brought about by UV photolysis resulting in a phosphonate cyclic nucleotide (2).  The products were characterized utilizing ³¹P NMR and ¹H NMR.