‘Stimulating discovery’ leads to strategy to swap oxygen in saturated rings

Photochemistry provides a pathway to swap the oxygen atom in oxetane rings with nitrogen, carbon, or sulfur at a single stroke. The resulting structures, such as azetidines and thietanes, are usually unattainable with traditional reactions and yet attractive to medicinal chemists. ‘This paper pushes skeletal editing beyond aromatic scaffolds, which represents a stimulating discovery,’ says Karen de la Vega, an expert in late-stage functionalisation at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia, Spain, who wasn’t involved in the study.