SOS Case Study: Synthetic Strategies toward Lactones Identified through Science of Synthesis

Yingmin Ji and Dr. Albert Granados | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

Yingmin Ji received her BSc in Chemistry from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). In 2024, she completed her MSc thesis in the CatSyNanoMat group at UAB. She is currently a PhD candidate at UAB working on novel photo-induced transformations.

Dr. Albert Granados carried out postdoctoral research at the UAB and in 2021 joined the group of Prof. Gary Molander at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) as a postdoctoral researcher. In early 2023, he was appointed Lecturer at UAB and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2024. He serves as a member of the Science of Synthesis Early Career Advisory Board for the 2025–2027 period.

Abstract:

Given our ongoing interest in intermolecular cyclization reactions, the synthesis of lactones (Figure 1) was selected for a representative case study. 

Science of Synthesis was employed as a structure-based planning tool to identify and evaluate complementary lactonization strategies, enabling rapid method selection and informed retrosynthetic design.