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Covers important name reactions relevant to heterocyclic chemistry

The field of heterocyclic chemistry has long presented a special challenge for chemists. Because of the enormous amount and variety of information, it is often a difficult topic to cover for undergraduate and graduate chemistry students, even in simplified form. Yet the chemistry of heterocyclic compounds and methods for their synthesis form the bedrock of modern medicinal chemical and pharmaceutical research. Thus there is a great need for high quality, up-to-date, and authoritative books on heterocyclic synthesis helpful to both the professional research chemist as well as the advanced student.

Name Reactions in Heterocyclic Chemistry provides a one-stop repository for this important field of organic chemistry. The primary topics include three- and four-membered heterocycles, five-membered heterocycles including indoles, furans, thiophenes, and oxazoles, six-membered heterocycles including quinolines, isoquinolines, and pyrimidines, and other heterocycles.

Each name reaction is summarized in seven sections:

• Description
• Historical perspective
• Mechanism
• Variations and improvements
• Synthetic utility
• Experimental
• References

Authored by a team of world-renowned contributors - some of whom have discovered the very reactions they describe - Name Reactions in Heterocyclic Chemistry represents a state-of-the-art resource for students and researchers alike.

JIE JACK LI is a medicinal chemist at Pf izer Global Research and Development in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His research interests include medicinal chemistry, heterocyclic chemistry, transition metal-catalyzed reactions, and radical chemistry. He is author of Name Reactions: A Collection of Detailed Reaction Mechanisms, and coauthor of Palladium in Heterocyclic Chemistry and Contemporary Drug Synthesis, also published by Wiley.

Li has previously written a book on name reactions in organic chemistry that included simple reaction mechanisms and applications for the included reactions. The present book, the first of a planned two-volume set, applies the same formula to name reactions in heterocyclic chemistry, a large and diverse branch of organic chemistry that is especially important in medicinal and pharmaceutical research. Many well-known name reactions, such as the Knorr, Hantsch, and Fischer syntheses, involve heterocyclic species, and have been described previously; however, the tendency of synthetic chemists to self-brand their discoveries is so great that there are plenty of new reactions described here (there is even one named after a city!). This volume describes about 70 reactions, and covers 3, 4, 5, and 6-membered rings. While nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur heterocycles are well covered for the smaller rings, the section on 6-membered heterocycles is almost exclusively devoted to nitrogen-containing rings, and ignores the other heteroatoms. Perhaps the forthcoming volume of the set will fill in these gaps in coverage, and will also include important larger-ring heterocyclic systems such as azepines, diazepines, and oxepines. The treatment of each reaction is usually presented in seven sections: description, historical perspective, mechanism, variations and improvements, synthetic utility, experimental, and references. Of particular value is the experimental section, which presents an illustrative procedure for the reaction, usually from the recent journal literature. While this book cannot and does not intend to be comprehensive (one must turn to Katritzky's multi-volume Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry for that), it is a unique and valuable addition to a relatively underserved branch of chemistry.Recommended for upper level undergraduates through professionals.Reviewer: F. Bartow Culp, Chemistry Librarian, Purdue University M. G. Mellon Library, bculp@purdue.edu Copyright 2006 E-Streams Reviews.