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Carbonyls compounds function as one of the most common building blocks in creating potential new drugs. Unlike classic carbonyl chemistry taught in introductory organic textbooks, when carbonyls are converted to their “radical” form, they become much more reactive.
These radicals, containing an unpaired electron desperately seeking its partner, enable researchers to form new bonds, to create complex, drug-like products. Ketyl radical formation required strong, harsh substances- reductants, like sodium or samarium, to act as catalysts before this development.
These reductants can be toxic, expensive and incompatible with creating medicines. Researchers esearchers found a way to use manganese as a catalyst that could be activated with a simple LED light. Manganese is cheap and abundant, which makes it an excellent catalyst.
It also allows access radicals by a complementary atom-transfer mechanism, rather than the classic electron-transfer mechanism. Ketyl radicals enables researchers to create more versatile and complex structures that could be useful in generating new medicines and more selective in creating products with defined geometries, so they can fit into drug targets, and a less wasteful process.