This research program of Dr. Robert M. Moriarty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago will be supported by the Organic Synthesis Program. The principal investigator will study the reactions of hypervalent iodine compounds. The use of these novel reagents for promoting carbon-carbon bond formation will be stressed by probing allylation, vinylation and alkylation reactions on substrates including pyrimidine and purine nucleosides. Interest in hypervalent iodine chemistry is based on the fact that the reactivity pattern of I(III) reagents resembles that of Pb(IV), Tl(III) and Hg(II). Further, due to the mechanism of of I(III) reactions involving ligand exchange and reductive elimination, similarities exist between I(III) chemistry and the organometallic chemistry of Pd, Pt and Ni.
