Buchwald-Hartwig coupling is a catalytic method for forming carbon-nitrogen bonds, named after chemists Stephen Buchwald and John Hartwig. It uses a palladium catalyst with designed ligands to attach a nitrogen-containing group to a specific position on a carbon ring, replacing a leaving group such as bromine. Because nitrogen groups affect a molecule's charge, solubility, and protein interactions, this reaction is widely used in drug discovery to build and test families of related compounds. Buchwald is a chemistry professor at MIT and Hartwig at UC Berkeley, and the pair shared the 2019 Wolf Prize for this catalytic work.
348 words · auto-generated from the episode video
36:36>> Yes. >> This one's catalytic carbon nitrogen bond formation. It's called the Bukwald Hartwig coupling and it's named after the two people that I think might get it if this is the thing that gets it. Um, this is a widely used method for making carbon nitrogen bonds. Nitrogen containing groups are common in medicines. You know, you attach the nitrogen to a certain position of a carbon ring and that can change the molecular's charge, the molecules charge, the solubility, the interaction with proteins. Um and this reaction is super important for creating drug therapies, right? Um in this case, what
37:17Hartwig and Bquall did was they combined a mechanistic understanding with liand design. Ligen is the molecule that bounds to some kind of catalyst. In this particular case, the catalyst that they always use is palladium. >> Mhm. which I think is the same um it's the same metal that was used by Iron Man in the cave >> to create the >> He did this in a cave. >> Yeah, he did this in a cave. >> Yeah. Yeah, that was palladium. Um I'm pretty sure in any case that metal is kind of a intermediary that that bridges this gap between the carbon removing like let's say the bromine in this case and then attaching a nitrogen there. And you can use this to control exactly
37:59where to attach the nitrogen in a convoluted organic molecule. This is huge because for drug discovery, this lets chemists make families of related molecules and then you can test how different nitrogen groups affect biological activity. >> So they actually shared the 2019 Wolf Prize. They were recognized for their catalytic work. So Bwald is a professor of chemistry at MIT and Hartwig is a professor of chemistry at use University of California Berkeley. So California on the board again. >> I I don't know what to tell you guys. >> I think I think we're going to have some fun. >> Yeah. And those are those are my
38:39predictions. Let's see. Uh we wanted to