N EWS O F T H E W E E K
ACC
ACC’S GERARD MOVES ON TRANSITION: Chemical industry
leader accepts top job at API
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MERICAN CHEMISTRY Council (ACC) President Jack N. Gerard will step down from the chemical industry’s largest trade association this fall to take the top job at the American Petroleum Institute (API), the main trade group for the oil and natural gas industry. Gerard will succeed API President Red Cavaney, 65, who is retiring on Nov. 1. At ACC’s annual meeting in Palm Desert, Calif., on June 4, ACC Chairman Robert L. Wood, who is also chairman and CEO of Chemtura, told board members that the search for Gerard’s replacement is well under way. API’s executive committee has endorsed the selection of Gerard, and the board of directors is expected to give its formal approval at its October meeting. “It has been a great honor to lead ACC through a robust restructuring, a successful public education campaign, and many advocacy successes—from ad-
Gerard
LIGANDS ARE KEY TO CHIRALITY SYNTHESIS: Amino acids transmit information to selectively transform C–H bonds
B
Y RELAYING chiral information from an amino
acid ligand to a palladium catalyst and onward to a substrate, Jin-Quan Yu and colleagues at Scripps Research Institute have selectively functionalized carbon-hydrogen bonds to form optically pure products (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., DOI: 10.1002/
GEARS In enantioselective C–H bond functionalization, an amino acid transmits chiral information via its nitrogen atom to the palladium catalyst.
O
Pd(II) catalyst OH O
HN O
N
H
N + BuB(OH)2
Bu
* Bu = n-butyl
* = chiral center
W W W.C E N - O N L I N E .O RG
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vancements on energy supply to enhanced chemical site security regulations to the defeat of many scientifically unsound product ban bills in states,” Gerard says. “ACC is now back on solid footing.” Gerard says he “looks forward to working with API on delivering its mission of affecting public policy in support of a strong, viable oil and natural gas industry.” Gerard took the reins at ACC in July 2005 after leading the National Mining Association. He was hired to reinvigorate ACC, which had been struggling from internal disputes and declining membership. Gerard launched a major reorganization of the council in December 2005 with a goal of delivering more costeffective advocacy. He cut costs by reducing staff and streamlining the group’s operations. Gerard also focused ACC’s lobbying efforts on several core issues, including the rising cost of natural gas and chemical plant security. In addition, ACC has taken its message to the public via its multi-million-dollar “essential2” advertising campaign. Gerard has won praise from chemical company executives for rebuilding confidence in ACC, which had seen its effectiveness undercut by divisions within the organization. Nearly three dozen companies have joined the 134-member ACC over the past three years, and several firms that had defected, including Huntsman Corp. and Chevron Phillips Chemical, have returned to the association.—GLENN HESS
anie.200801030). This finding could reduce the number of steps needed to make molecules, one of the most coveted goals for synthetic chemists. Activating the relatively inert C–H bond enantioselectively and catalytically can already be achieved through several approaches, but none of these techniques involve formation of a chiral carbon-metal bond during the reaction. Yu’s team is the first to demonstrate this type of transformation by using a chiral palladium catalyst. Yu and coworkers sought ligands that would coordinate to Pd and influence the enantioselectivity of the catalyst insertion into C–H bonds. “You need to have a chiral environment as close as possible to the Pd metal center so Pd can transmit chiral information to the C–H bond,” Yu explains. But because established chiral ligands such as phosphines are known to hinder C–H activation, designing the proper catalyst has been “a significant problem,” says Melanie S. Sanford at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who also develops C–H activation chemistry. The amino acid ligands that Yu’s team eventually found do not adversely affect the reaction. They work like a set of gears, transferring chirality information from the amino acid’s chiral α-carbon to its nitrogen atom and from the nitrogen atom to the Pd metal, which then conveys it to the target C–H bond. So far, the technique has been applied only to a small number of substrates. But there are opportunities for expanding the method by using other amino acid derivatives as ligands, Sanford says.—CARMEN DRAHL
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