The importance of nitrogen-containing heteroaromatic compounds is highlighted by their essential structural roles in pharmaceutical compounds. As a result, the need for rapid access to functionalized heteroaromatics plays a critical role in the drug discovery process.
Due to their abundance and low cost, unfunctionalized nitrogen-containing heteroaromatic compounds make for ideal coupling partners compared to their borated and halogenated counterparts, which currently represent the prevailing starting materials for C–C bond formation. Although attempts have been made to activate these simple staring materials, their inherent electronic diversity presents significant obstacles to strategies for their general activation.
Our project aims to leverage both Brønsted acid catalysis and electrocatalysis to develop a broad range of C–C and C–X forming technologies by temporarily accessing reduced, open-shell intermediates. If successful, such methods would represent a new and highly enabling catalytic mode to access these important heterocyclic structures.
