Vera Koester

Frankfurt am Main, United States

Editor-in-Chief at ChemistryViews

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Articles

Transmutation of a Metallabenzene for Pyridine Synthesis

1 week ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Single-atom skeletal editing has emerged as a powerful tool for molecular structural modification, enabling precise reshaping of molecular frameworks by inserting, deleting, and replacing individual atoms. Metalla-aromatics—a unique class of aromatic compounds where one or more transition metals are incorporated into the aromatic system—can be considered potential candidates for previously unknown skeletal editing.
Sunday ChemistryViews Quiz (10)

1 week ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Welcome to the Sunday ChemistryViews Quiz! We explore a chemistry topic in this fun and short quiz which will be out in irregular intervals on a Sunday morning. Test your knowledge and learn something new in just a few minutes. Ready to dive in? Let’s go!See answer❌ False!👃🧬 The ability to smell asparagus urine and the ability to produce it are both hereditary, but they are independent of each other. This means that someone can produce the odor without being able to smell it, and vice versa.
Air-Stable Ligand-Free Nickel Anion

1 week ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Transition metals (TMs) typically show rich redox chemistry and can be found in various oxidation states. While strong π-accepting ligands have stabilized molecular TM complexes with TMs in formal negative oxidation states, organic-ligand-free TM anions remain rare and are largely restricted to intermetallic compounds based on heavy TMs like gold or platinum.
Angewandte Chemie 18/2025: Connections

1 week ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

In this issue, Wenchuan Lai et al. review the role of water in electrocatalysis. Sofiia Zuieva and Xin Chen discuss synthetic approaches to connect molecules and 2D transition metal dichalcogenide in heterostructures in a Minireview. In the original research section, Qingyu Yan et al. show how to enable an unconventional alternating distal N2 reduction pathway for the efficient electrosynthesis of ammonia. Jana Roithová et al. mapped the catalytic cycle of Ru-catalyzed ammonia oxidation. Rosalie K.
Never Give Up And Always Be Pragmatic And Optimistic

1 week ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Katharina Landfester of Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany, has received the 2024 Liebig Memorial Medal from the German Chemical Society (GDCh). She was honored for her remarkable work in the field of organic polymers, particularly, for the development and application of nanocapsules for the targeted drug delivery and as building blocks for artificial cells.
Scalable and Flexible Synthesis of Spirotetrahydroquinoline Derivatives

1 week ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Tetrahydroquinolines (THQs) are important scaffolds in medicinal chemistry. Cyclobutane-fused THQs have attracted attention in drug discovery due to their inherent structural rigidity and enhanced pharmacological profiles. The strained cyclobutane ring, in particular, acts as a versatile and conformationally constrained building block, enabling the construction of complex molecular architectures with potent biological activities.
Electrochemical Co-Catalyzed C─H Activation for Enantioselective Formation of Indoles With Two Different Chiral C─N Axes

2 weeks ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Enantioselective catalysis is a key approach in organic synthesis for producing chiral bioactive compounds and advanced materials. Lutz Ackermann, University of Göttingen, Germany, and coauthors have introduced a new class of chiral oxazoline ureas as κ²-N,O-preligands for enantioselective transition metal catalysis, addressing the ongoing need for tunable, efficient ligands to support greener and more diverse synthesis. What did you do?
15 Years of ChemistryViews

2 weeks ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Celebrating Chemistry ConnectionsFifteen years of discovery—marked by outstanding science, inspiring stories, and, above all, by the remarkable people who crossed our paths over the past fifteen years—briefly or for longer. A big thank you to all of you, our wonderful readers, authors, supporters, and friends.
Light-Driven Routes to Strained Borylated Rings

2 weeks ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Huan-Ming Huang and colleagues, ShanghaiTech University, China, have demonstrated two visible-light-driven methods to construct borylated strained ring systems, key motifs in drug and materials development. The team uses energy transfer catalysis to enable a rare type of photorearrangement involving boron. In the first method, the researchers designed a substrate featuring a carbon–boron σ-bond and a nearby carbon–carbon π-bond, separated by a single sp³ carbon.
Room-Temperature C(sp³)–C(sp²) Bond Formation from Alcohols and Aryl Acids - ChemistryViews

2 weeks ago | chemistryviews.org | Vera Koester

Alcohols and aryl carboxylic acids are among the most commercially available, synthetically versatile, and operationally convenient building blocks in organic chemistry. Despite their widespread availability, the direct formation of C(sp³)–C(sp²) bonds from these functional groups remains a challenge, and existing methods still largely depend on aryl and alkyl halides, which can be expensive, difficult to prepare, or limited in functional group compatibility.