Synthesis of 3-substituted isoindolin-1-ones via a tandem desilylation, cross-coupling, hydroamidation sequence under aqueous phase-transfer conditions.

A simple and expedient method for the synthesis of 3-methylene-isoindolin-1-ones 4 under aqueous phase-transfer conditions has been developed. Starting from 2-iodobenzamides 1 and (silyl)alkynes, the products are obtained in high yields and short reaction times (30 min) with the use of inexpensive CuCl/PPh3 catalyst system in the presence of n-Bu4NBr (TBAB) as a phase-transfer agent. Terminal alkynes are conveniently "unmasked" upon in situ desilylation under the reaction conditions.

Programmed evolution for optimization of orthogonal metabolic output in bacteria.

Current use of microbes for metabolic engineering suffers from loss of metabolic output due to natural selection. Rather than combat the evolution of bacterial populations, we chose to embrace what makes biological engineering unique among engineering fields - evolving materials. We harnessed bacteria to compute solutions to the biological problem of metabolic pathway optimization.