Jun Yong Kang and Hai Huang (both Chemistry and Biochemistry), as well as computational study collaborators at the University of Colorado, Denver, published a research article, in Angewandte Chemie. This research demonstrates a new synthetic transformation of dialkylphosphonates to mixed phosphonates under mild reaction conditions. The mixed phosphonates are prevalent in pharmaceuticals and bioactive small molecules such as antibacterial, ligand prodrug, and enzyme inhibitors. This synthetic method avoids the use of toxic metals, hazardous chloride reagents, and moisture sensitive chloride intermediates for the synthesis of biologically important mixed phosphonate compounds.
