Sulfur Dioxide Insertion Reactions for Organic Synthesis

This brief summarizes the most commonly used sulfur dioxide surrogates and also shows the diverse reactivities to highlight the advances made in the development of synthetic methods through the insertion of sulfur dioxide. Depending on the nature of the transformation, these reactions are classified into four types: (i) pericyclic reactions; (ii) nucleophilic addition with organometallic reagents; (iii) transition metal catalysis; and (iv) free radical reactions.

Highlighting recent advances in the insertion of sulfur dioxide, providing detailed descriptions of the experimental procedures for these valuable reactions, and discussing the remaining challenges in this field, the brief offers an appealing and highly useful guide for a wide readership in organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry from both academia and industry.

Jie Wu received his B.Sc. in chemistry from Jiangxi Normal University in 1995 and pursued his Ph.D. studies at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Xue-Long Hou (1995-2000). After conducting research as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (2000-2001), he worked as a visiting scientist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (2001-2002) and a staff scientist at VivoQuest, Inc. (2002-2004). In 2004, he moved to the Department of Chemistry at Fudan University and became a professor two years later. He received the Thieme Chemistry Journals Award in 2010 and Dow Innovation Challenge Award in 2013 and serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of ACS Combinatorial Science.