Navigating chemical space: utilizing nitrene reactivities in traditional organic chemistry and biocatalysis

Modern advancements across various fields, including medicine, agriculture, and material sciences, depend on synthetic transformations that navigate through chemical space to explore the structure-function relationship of chemical products. Continuous efforts to improve synthetic routes for efficiently accessing target molecules stem from the development of innovative methodologies to construct and modify chemical scaffolds. Significant progress in organic synthesis has recently enabled the selective functionalization of the periphery of molecules and the modification of molecular cores. In this talk, diverse synthetic strategies ranging from traditional organic chemistry to biocatalysis are presented. The complementarity of these methods facilitates the implementation of efficient syntheses to generate compounds for their application in targeted areas of chemical space. Advancements in ring expansion reactions mediated by the insertion of a nitrogen atom into carbocyclic cores are showcased, facilitating the construction of valuable N-heterocycles. Furthermore, the engineering of enzymes for the stereoselective introduction of primary amines is demonstrated. Overall, the versatility of these methods enables unique synthetic pathways to construct synthetically relevant building blocks and products.