Editor's Page pubs.acs.org/Organometallics
Organometallics at 35: Personal Perspectives
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f you are a connoisseur of cover art, you may have noticed something in recent months. Thanks in large part to our acting Managing Editor, Tammy Hanna, authors selected for cover art have been encouraged to produce a “then and now” theme. The goal of this exercise is to highlight a past accomplishment in the field, ideally published in Organometallics, against the more contemporary advance that appears in the issue. This is just one way we are celebrating our 35th year. Another initiative debuts in this issue. Each member of the editorial team has been asked to provide a perspective on 35 years of Organometallics. The personal nature of the account is key to this charge, and the contributors are free to write about any topic related to organometallic chemistry and Organometallics that they wish. Our first editorial is from Associate Editor Daniel Mindiola at the University of Pennsylvania. Dan, a native of Venezuela, earned his Ph.D. with Kit Cummins at MIT and is well-known to our readers. He has established a highly visible research program with notable achievements in early-transition-metal carbene and carbyne chemistry, methane functionalization, and the chemistry of pincer ligands, just to name a few. But instead of focusing on his own work, Dan chose to write about another transformative figure in organometallic chemistry, MIT professor Alan Davison. With Alan’s passing in 2015, Dan thought it appropriate to highlight how fundamental investigations into organometallic technetium chemistry and ligand design in the Davison lab were translated into one of the most important radiopharmaceutical agents in history. For more insight, Dan enlisted James Kronauge of inviCRO, a key player in the story. I am thrilled Dan chose this topic. The editorial not only highlights Alan’s important contributions to our field but also reminds us all how curiosity-driven basic research is the key enabler of transformative applicationswhether intended or not. As you will see in the Editorial, the metal−carbon bond plays a central role in the story. There is a bit of a twist, as unlike metal−carbon bonds in catalysis where imparting reactivity is key, here it was stability that was critical for success. It is also important Organometallics highlight the story of Cardiolite, as I often am surprised to learn few students and researchers know the role of organometallic chemistry and ligand field theory in its development. With over 40 million patients benefiting from these discoveries, this is another organometallic success story ranking up there with the Nobel Prizes awarded for olefin polymerization, metal sandwich compounds, asymmetric catalysis, olefin metathesis, and cross-coupling. Stay tuned in the coming months for other personalized accounts from our team highlighting the journal in celebration of our 35th birthday. Also be sure to keep updated with the latest from the journal on our Twitter feed, @Orgamet_ACS. Happy Birthday!
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
Paul J. Chirik, Editor-in-Chief
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States © XXXX American Chemical Society
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.organomet.6b00680 Organometallics XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
