Awards and Prizes, Bibliography as Topic, Societies, Scientific, and Chemistry, Organic

Household Products, Interdisciplinary Research, Chemistry, Organic, Odorants, and Perfume

Profragrances or properfumes are important delivery systems for the controlled release of volatile compounds. They constitute an essential part of a series of commercial body care and household products to ensure the long-lastingness of perfume perception in practical application. Fragrances are released from their respective precursors by covalent bond cleavage under mild environmental conditions. Originating from organic chemistry, modern profragrance research has evolved to a truly interdisciplinary research area covering supramolecular science, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry and various aspects of materials science. The present report highlights some of the profragrance technologies developed at Firmenich during the past 20 years by focusing on hydrolytically cleavable conjugates and photolabile precursors.

Genomics, Biological Products metabolism, and Chemistry, Organic

The development over the last 100 years of organic chemists' contributions to the understanding of the biosynthesis of natural products is reviewed. The transitions from speculation to labelling experiments and to the current role of genomics are exemplified, particularly from terpenoid biosynthesis.

Organic Chemistry Phenomena, Research Support as Topic, Chemistry, Organic economics, Chemistry, Organic education, Chemistry, Pharmaceutical economics, Chemistry, Pharmaceutical education, and Drug Discovery methods

Small molecules remain the backbone for modern drug discovery. They are conceived and synthesized by medicinal chemists, many of whom were originally trained as organic chemists. Support from government and industry to provide training and personnel for continued development of this critical skill set has been declining for many years. This Viewpoint highlights the value of organic chemistry and organic medicinal chemists in the complex journey of drug discovery as a reminder that basic science support must be restored.

Catalysis, Cryoelectron Microscopy, Microscopy, Electron, Transmission, Chemistry, Organic, and Nature

The case is made for transitioning organic chemistry from a developed discipline that remains highly dependent upon organic solvents to one that will be sustainable, based on water as the reaction medium. Processes in hand that today achieve the same bond constructions characteristic of traditional organic synthesis, but can be accomplished under environmentally responsible conditions, are discussed as representative of the potential that lies ahead.

Models, Chemical, Models, Molecular, Chemistry, Organic, Hydrogen chemistry, Hydrogen Bonding, and Organic Chemistry Phenomena

Ordered porous solid-state architectures constructed via non-covalent supramolecular self-assembly have attracted increasing interest due to their unique advantages and potential applications. Porous metal-coordination organic frameworks (MOFs) are generated by the assembly of metal coordination centers and organic linkers. Compared to MOFs, porous hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) are readily purified and recovered via simple recrystallization. However, due to lacking of sufficiently ability to orientate self-aggregation of building motifs in predictable manners, rational design and preparation of porous HOFs are still challenging. Herein, we summarize recent developments about porous HOFs and attempt to gain deeper insights into the design strategies of basic building motifs.

Enzyme Inhibitors, Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors, Histone Demethylases antagonists inhibitors, Organic Chemistry Phenomena, Chemistry, Organic, Drug Discovery methods, and Drug Discovery trends

The first step in "drug" discovery is to find compounds binding to a potential drug target. In modern medicinal chemistry, the screening of a chemical library, structure-based drug design, and ligand-based drug design, or a combination of these methods, are generally used for identifying the desired compounds. However, they do not necessarily lead to success and there is no infallible method for drug discovery. Therefore, it is important to explore medicinal chemistry based on not only the conventional methods but also new ideas. So far, we have found various compounds as drug candidates. In these studies, some strategies based on organic chemistry have allowed us to find drug candidates, through 1) construction of a focused library using organic reactions and 2) rational design of enzyme inhibitors based on chemical reactions catalyzed by the target enzyme. Medicinal chemistry based on organic chemical reactions could be expected to supplement the conventional methods. In this review, we present drug discovery with the help of organic chemistry showing examples of our explorative studies on histone deacetylase inhibitors and lysine-specific demethylase 1 inhibitors.

Algorithms, Breast Neoplasms drug therapy, Chemistry, Organic, Chemistry, Pharmaceutical, Combinatorial Chemistry Techniques, Computer-Aided Design, Crystallography, X-Ray, Drug Design, Estradiol chemistry, Female, Humans, Models, Molecular, ROC Curve, Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators pharmacology, Structure-Activity Relationship, Drug Discovery methods, Receptors, Estrogen agonists, Receptors, Estrogen antagonists inhibitors, Receptors, Estrogen chemistry, Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators chemistry, and Software

As part of a large medicinal chemistry program, we wish to develop novel selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) as potential breast cancer treatments using a combination of experimental and computational approaches. However, one of the remaining difficulties nowadays is to fully integrate computational (i.e., virtual, theoretical) and medicinal (i.e., experimental, intuitive) chemistry to take advantage of the full potential of both. For this purpose, we have developed a Web-based platform, Forecaster, and a number of programs (e.g., Prepare, React, Select) with the aim of combining computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry expertise to facilitate drug discovery and development and more specifically to integrate synthesis into computer-aided drug design. In our quest for potent SERMs, this platform was used to build virtual combinatorial libraries, filter and extract a highly diverse library from the NCI database, and dock them to the estrogen receptor (ER), with all of these steps being fully automated by computational chemists for use by medicinal chemists. As a result, virtual screening of a diverse library seeded with active compounds followed by a search for analogs yielded an enrichment factor of 129, with 98% of the seeded active compounds recovered, while the screening of a designed virtual combinatorial library including known actives yielded an area under the receiver operating characteristic (AU-ROC) of 0.78. The lead optimization proved less successful, further demonstrating the challenge to simulate structure activity relationship studies.

Aging, Animals, Biochemistry methods, Biochemistry trends, Biomedical Research methods, Biomedical Research trends, Chemistry, Organic methods, Chemistry, Organic trends, Diabetes Mellitus immunology, Diabetes Mellitus metabolism, Diabetes Mellitus physiopathology, Glycation End Products, Advanced metabolism, History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, Humans, Lipid Peroxidation, Obesity immunology, Obesity metabolism, Obesity physiopathology, South Carolina, United States, Veterans, Anniversaries and Special Events, Biochemistry history, Biomedical Research history, Chemistry, Organic history, Maillard Reaction, and Oxidative Stress

Animals, Humans, Chemistry, Organic methods, Chemistry, Organic trends, and Mechanotransduction, Cellular

Cells and bacteria use mechanotransduction processes to transform a mechanical force into a chemical/biochemical response. The area of chemistry where chemical reactions are induced by mechanical forces is called mechanochemistry. Over the last few years, chemists developed force-induced reactions affecting covalent bonds in molecules under tension which requires high energy input and/or high intensity forces. In contrast, in nature, mechanotransduction processes take place with forces of much weaker intensity and much less demanding energy. They are mainly based on protein conformational changes or changes in supramacromolecular architectures. Mechanochemistry based on such low-energy-demanding processes and which does not affect chemical bonds can be called soft-mechanochemistry. In this feature article, we first discuss some examples of soft-mechanochemistry processes encountered in nature, in particular, cryptic sites, allowing us to define more precisely the concepts underlying soft-mechanochemistry. A series of examples, developed over the past few years, of chemomechanoresponsive systems based on soft-mechanochemistry principles are given. We describe, in particular, cryptic site surfaces, enzymatically active films whose activity can be modulated by stretching and films where stretching induces changes in their fluorescence properties. Finally, we give our view of the future of soft-mechanochemistry.

Furans chemical synthesis, Heterocyclic Compounds chemical synthesis, Structure-Activity Relationship, Chemistry, Organic, Furans chemistry, and Heterocyclic Compounds chemistry

This work highlights the literature of one of the most valuable moieties in the field of organic chemistry. In this review, the chemistry of tetronic acid as a simple precursor to privileged heterocyclic motifs is described. The synthetic procedures of different fused heterocycles incorporating a furan moiety are described. Fused heterocycles are classified as bicyclic, tricyclic, tetracyclic and spiro-fused pyran derivatives.

Chemistry, Organic, Electrons, and Models, Chemical

A new theory for the study of the reactivity in Organic Chemistry, named Molecular Electron Density Theory (MEDT), is proposed herein. MEDT is based on the idea that while the electron density distribution at the ground state is responsible for physical and chemical molecular properties, as proposed by the Density Functional Theory (DFT), the capability for changes in electron density is responsible for molecular reactivity. Within MEDT, the reactivity in Organic Chemistry is studied through a rigorous quantum chemical analysis of the changes of the electron density as well as the energies associated with these changes along the reaction path in order to understand experimental outcomes. Studies performed using MEDT allow establishing a modern rationalisation and to gain insight into molecular mechanisms and reactivity in Organic Chemistry.

Aerosols chemistry, Atmosphere chemistry, Chemistry, Organic methods, Climate, Humans, Organic Chemicals chemistry, Oxidation-Reduction, Volatilization, Air Pollutants chemistry, Atmosphere analysis, Chemistry, Organic trends, and Environmental Monitoring

Earth's atmosphere contains a multitude of organic compounds, which differ by orders of magnitude regarding fundamental properties such as volatility, reactivity, and propensity to form cloud droplets, affecting their impact on global climate and human health. Despite recent major research efforts and advances, there are still substantial gaps in understanding of atmospheric organic chemistry, hampering efforts to understand, model, and mitigate environmental problems such as aerosol formation in both polluted urban and more pristine regions. The analytical toolbox available for chemists to study atmospheric organic components has expanded considerably during the past decade, opening new windows into speciation, time resolution and detection of reactive and semivolatile compounds at low concentrations. This has provided unprecedented opportunities, but also unveiled new scientific challenges. Specific groundbreaking examples include the role of epoxides in aerosol formation especially from isoprene, the importance of highly oxidized, reactive organics in air-surface processes (whether atmosphere-biosphere exchange or aerosols), as well as the extent of interactions of anthropogenic and biogenic emissions and the resulting impact on atmospheric organic chemistry.

History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, Italy, Biological Products chemistry, and Chemistry, Organic

Crystallography, X-Ray, Chemistry, Organic, and Drug Discovery