The 19th International Symposium on Olefin Metathesis and Related Chemistry (ISOM XIX) took place this year from July 10-15th in the beautiful city of Rennes, France. Recent breakthroughs in olefin metathesis were presented by both new players in the field along with some of the metathesis pioneers. All three 2005 Nobel laureates in Chemistry, Robert H. Grubbs, Richard Schrock and Yves Chauvin were in attendance and both Professors Grubbs and Schrock presented stimulating plenary lectures.
Highlights of the week’s presentations include new developments in Z-selective metathesis reactions using ruthenium, molybdenum and tungsten complexes and improved methods for macrocylizations.
A few of my favorite talks were those presented by:
- Siegfried Blechert on natural product synthesis using metathesis cascades and new catalysts for enantioselective metathesis.1
- Michael R. Buchmeiser on titanium and hafnium catalysts for simultaneous ROMP/vinyl insertion polymerization.2
- Lionel Delaude on bimetallic ruthenium-arene complexes and their activity for ROMP and RCM.3
- Steven T. Diver on cross couplings and ring-expansions using ene-yne metathesis.4
The excellent science was celebrated by everyone with the delicious local food and wine of Britanny and our glasses were raised to toast the field of metathesis. With the conclusion of ISOM XIX, we can now continue our work to solve the remaining challenges in metathesis with plans to present at ISOM XX in 2013, which will take place in Nara, Japan. We look forward to seeing you there!
1 Kannenberg, A.; Rost, D.; Eibauer, S.; Tiede, S.; Blechert, S. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 3299-3302.
2 Buchmeiser, M. R.; Camadanli, S.; Wang, D.; Zou, Y.; Decker, U.; Kühnel, C.; Reinhardt, I. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 3566-3571.
3 Borguet, Y.; Sauvage, X.; Zaragoza, G.; Demonceau, A.; Delaude, L. Organometallics 2011, 30, 2730-2738.
4 Clark, J. R.; Diver, S. T. Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 2896-2899.
{ 1 comment } | 
Print This Post
|
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I agree with Rosemary Conrad Kiser, alkene/alkyne metathesis in still an innovative branch of science. It was obvious at ISOM 19
I am also pleased that she enjoyed Rennes environment and what Bruneau’s team organized beside the conference for participants to celebrate metathesis in a nice atmosphere.
Pierre H. Dixneuf