Editor's Page pubs.acs.org/Organometallics
Editorial: Introducing Tutorials his issue of Organometallics features our first “Tutorial”,1 a new article type that is a perspective of an important topic to the field with a pedagogical emphasis. These articles are meant to be resources for researchers, students, and instructors that we hope will find use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. Formal requirements are minimal, and authors are free to present the topic with their own personal flavor and perspective. Because these articles will often have a historical flair, I think most readers will find them enjoyable and fun. The spirit of the Tutorial finds its roots in the wonderful essays on historical topics written by our Founding Editor-inChief, Dietmar Seyferth.2 His essays, as well as those contributed by invited authors, remain some of our most popular content. Our first contribution is from Dr. Jay Labinger at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Laboratories of Chemical Synthesis at Caltech. Jay earned his Ph.D. at Harvard, conducting some of the seminal studies on the stereochemistry of oxidative addition,3 and later completed a postdoctoral appointment with Jeffrey Schwartz at Princeton, developing alkene hydrozirconation.4 He has held positions both in academia and industry, which have shaped his perspective on our field. In addition to his current administrative duties at Caltech, Jay has been involved in a host of collaborative projects ranging from alkane functionalization with John Bercaw to heterogeneous catalysis with Mark Davis to bioinorganic chemistry with Harry Gray. Jay has been a highly visible member of the organometallic community for over 40 years and has mentored many graduate students and postdocs during his time in Pasadena. As a member of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts,5 Jay has also written broadly on a variety of topics and, while his interests are varied, his contributions are always scholarly, witty, and a pleasure to read. Readers who know Jay personally are aware of his appetite for a good mechanistic puzzle and his clever ability to rapidly disentangle the most complex of reaction pathways. On a more personal note, Jay served as a second advisor to me during my graduate studies and was someone I could consistently rely on for a scrupulous eye for detail and high-quality, rigorous chemistry. I am both honored and pleased to have him as our inaugural author for the first Tutorial. Our first topic is “Oxidative Addition”. This topic is apropos for several reasons. It is a core fundamental transformation that is among the first and often most memorable topics students encounter when learning organometallic chemistry. If any single process comes to mind when thinking about organometallic chemistry, it is oxidative addition. Aside from these more nostalgic reasons, oxidative addition is a key bondbreaking and substrate-activating event in many important catalytic cycles and is operative in some of the most industrially impactful processes such as asymmetric alkene hydrogenation, cross-coupling reactions, and the carbonylation of methanol. As Jay highlights throughout his Tutorial, there is no single accepted mechanism for oxidative addition. Many of the important tools now commonly used to interrogate how
T
© 2015 American Chemical Society
organometallic reactions operate trace their origins to early studies on oxidative addition. Jay’s tutorial provides a lively account of the history and mechanism of the reaction, and he reminds us there is still plenty to learn. Be sure to read the reference section, as it contains entertaining and valuable anecdotes. We hope you enjoy our new article type and find it a stimulating addition to Organometallics. As always, please feel free to send your suggestions to the editorial office (chirikoffi
[email protected]). Although Tutorials are currently by invitation only, suggestions for both authors and topics are welcome. We also look forward to discussion and other comments on our Twitter feed (@Orgmet_ACS using #Tutorials).
Paul J. Chirik, Editor-in-Chief Organometallics
■
Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
■
REFERENCES
(1) Chirik, P. J. Organometallics 2015, 34, 3097−3098. (2) For a review of highlights, see: (a) Seyferth, S. Organometallics 2009, 28, 1598−1605. (b) Seyferth, S. Organometallics 2006, 25, 2−24. (c) Seyferth, S. Organometallics 2003, 22, 5154−5178. (d) Seyferth, S. Organometallics 2003, 22, 2346−2357. (3) (a) Labinger, J. A.; Osborn, J. A. Inorg. Chem. 1980, 19, 3230. (b) Labinger, J. A.; Osborn, J. A.; Coville, N. J. Inorg. Chem. 1980, 19, 3236−3243. (4) Schwartz, J.; Labinger, J. A. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 1976, 15, 333−340. (5) See, for example, http://www.litsci.org/ (accessed September 28, 2015).
Published: October 26, 2015 4783
DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.5b00815 Organometallics 2015, 34, 4783−4783
