Direct Deamination of Primary Amines via Isodiazene Intermediates

As a research organization, Concept Life Sciences survey the literature and participate in seminars, symposia and conferences. This engagement with the organic chemistry community, consisting of fellow industrial scientists and academics allows us to learn novel, cutting-edge processes for making small molecules and to understand the key trends in pharmaceutical science.

In July, we participated in the virtual Heterocyclic & Synthesis Group Postdoc Symposium. One of the talks, from the Levin group at The University of Chicago, caught our attention: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.1c09779 Direct deamination is a poorly explored procedure because a transformation that removes functionality appears counterintuitive as a means to increase chemical complexity. However, for many classes of naturally occurring amines, deamination affords products of increased value relative to the feedstock amine.

For example, β-lactam antibiotics are naturally occurring amines. Their deaminated analogues can function as β-lactamase inhibitors, small molecules that will help to preserve the utility of β-lactam antibiotics into the future.