NEWS OF THE WEEK
NEW CHEMISTRY JOURNALS EMERGE PUBLICATIONS: Nature Chemistryy ACS Nano, and ChemSusChem are unveiled
Covers of two of the three announced journals.
HEMISTRY PUBLISHING is flourishing, as evidenced by the proliferation ofjournals dedicated to the topic. The American Chemical Society last week published the inaugural issue of ACS Nano. Paul S. Weiss, distinguished professor of chemistry and physics at Pennsylvania State University, is editor-in-chief of the interdisciplinary monthly journal. ACS Nano includes comprehensive peer-reviewed articles and reviews, as well as perspectives and conversations with leaders in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Wiley-VCH and the Italian and German chemical societies will begin publishing ChemSusChem early next year. The monthly journal will focus on research at the interface of chemistry and sustainability science. Peter Golitz, editor-in-chief of Wiley-
VCH's Angewandte Chemie, will helm the new journal. Nature Publishing Group (NPG) plans to launch Nature Chemistry in the first quarter of 2009, says Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature. The new monthly journal will publish research, review, and perspective articles; highlights of the latest research; and News and Views, which are analyses examining the wider implications of research, he adds. In its announcement about Nature Chemistry, NPG said the publication "marks a significant new expansion into chemistry publishing." Librarians have sometimes criticized the publisher for launching many journals. But Campbell says: "We have repeatedly found that scientists welcome the arrival of a Nature journal in their discipline, given our track record for leading the citation rankings and also achieving a strong profile beyond the ranks of researchers. Demand for our publications from libraries is also strong. We have enough enthusiastic feedback already to expect that Nature Chemistry'will be a popular journal." Brian D. Crawford, president of the ACS Publications Division, notes that "every competitor in the scientific publishing marketplace introduces innovations that challenge other publishers to improve their products." But he adds that "there are already several highquality journals that feature innovative and impactful chemistry research. So Nature's rationale in launching another general chemistry title is not yet clear, apart from their commercial interests."—SOPHIE ROVNER
istry professor at England's Cambridge University. "It has forced us to be inventive." Of the many hurdles the researchers had to overcome, Ley reckons the most challenging was coupling the molecule's two main fragments. After years of ORGANIC SYNTHESIS: After more than attempts at this convergent approach, the group was two decades, chemists succeed at finally able to marry these two fragments by means of a propargylic enol ether Claisen reaction. The next step, making complex natural product a radical-induced cyclization, elegantly constructed one sterically dense portion of the molecule. "Making a molecule such as this is not an EverestT TOOK 22 YEARS and the efforts of more than climbing exercise; it's about what you learn from the 40 chemists, but Steven V. Ley's group has finally experience," Ley says. "We can be proud of the new managed to complete a 64-step synthesis of azamethods and solutions to the tough problems we have dirachtin, a naturally occurring insecticide (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., encountered, and now we have the tools and proce0 C02CH3 dures to really work out how this molecule functions DOI: io.ioo2/anie.200703027 and OPXOH biologically." io.ioo2/anie.200703028). Amos B. Smith III, a chemistry professor at the UniIsolated from the Indian neem versity of Pennsylvania, calls the work "an outstanding K tree Azadirachta indica, azadiQT achievement, further demonstrating Ley and colrachtin possesses a small but OH leagues as superb tacticians in the art of complex-moldensely functionalized architecCH3O2C'— d ecule total synthesis." ture. It has 16 stereogenic centers, Smith adds: "More important than the actual conseven of which are tetrasubstitutAzadirachtin quest is the exciting new chemistry that has emanated ed, and a diverse array of oxygenover the past 22 years from the Ley and other laboated functionalities. "This has been a tough project from start to finish, as ratories who have participated in this monumental challenge. Clearly, the science of synthesis is the winthe molecule is so prone to rearrangement under acidner."—BETHANY HALFORD ic, basic, or photolytic conditions," says Ley, a chem-
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