Tao’s work has been published in Organic Letters! Congratulations!

Formal Synthesis of (±)-Aplykurodinone-1 through a Hetero-Pauson–Khand Cycloaddition Approach

Cheng Tao, Jing Zhang, Xiaoming Chen, Huifei Wang, Yun Li, Bin Cheng, andHongbin Zhai

Org. Lett., 2017, 19, 1056–1059

DOI: 10.1021/acs.orglett.7b00068

 The tricyclic intermediate 2 has been synthesized in eight steps from known compound 6 in 20% overall yield. As such, this constitutes a highly efficient formal synthesis of (±)-aplykurodinone-1. This synthesis features a unique, one-pot, intramolecular hetero-Pauson-Khand reaction (h-PKR)/desilylation sequence to expeditiously construct the tricyclic framework, providing valuable insights for expanding the scope and boundaries of h-PKR.