Suzuki reaction, remixed

It's hard to improve on a classic. But Richard Y. Liu was eager to try. Cross-coupling reactions, including Suzuki-Miyaura coupling and Buchwald-Hartwig amination, are some of the most-used transformations in organic synthesis. These reactions have "had so many years to be optimized to work with almost everything," says Liu, an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University . The list of molecular pieces that these reactions can stitch together is constantly growing, adding to the chemical space of complex molecules that chemists can create. Liu doesn't want to just add to chemical space. He wants to multiply it by using existing starting materials in new ways. Now he and his group have unveiled a three-component reaction that takes Suzuki coupling partners—an aryl halide and an arylboronic acid—and inserts a nitrogen between them to make an amine product ( Science 2024, DOI: 10.1126/science.adl5359 ). "I love this theme