Credit: Photo courtesy of The Scripps Research Institute.
Members of The Scripps Research Institute's Baran lab illustrate how they have repurposed a 70-year old reaction: using a simple nickel catalyst, a limitless array of simple carboxylic acids can be diversified to make new C–C bonds with the same reagents and simple technique of the age-old amide-bond forming reaction. From left to right are Phil Baran, Lara Malins, Tien Qin, Jacob Edwards, Chao Li and Josep Cornella.