Dosage delivery of sensitive reagents enables glove-box-free synthesis

Contemporary organic chemists employ a broad range of catalytic and stoichiometric methods to construct molecules for applications in the material sciences, and as pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and sensors. The utility of a synthetic method may be greatly reduced if it relies on a glove box to enable the use of air- and moisture-sensitive reagents or catalysts. Furthermore, many synthetic chemistry laboratories have numerous containers of partially used reagents that have been spoiled by exposure to the ambient atmosphere. This is exceptionally wasteful from both an environmental and a cost perspective. Here we report an encapsulation method for stabilizing and storing air- and moisture-sensitive compounds. We demonstrate this approach in three contexts, by describing single-use capsules that contain all of the reagents (catalysts, ligands, and bases) necessary for the glove-box-free palladium-catalysed carbon-fluorine, carbon-nitrogen, and carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions. This strategy should reduce the number of error-prone, tedious and time-consuming weighing procedures required for such syntheses and should be applicable to a wide range of reagents, catalysts, and substrate combinations.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Pre-doctoral fellowship (1122374))National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Postdoctoral fellowship (1F32GM108092-01A1))National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Award number R01GM46059

Data from: The rise of health biotechnology research in Latin America: a scientometric analysis of health biotechnology production and impact in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico.

This paper analyzes the patterns of health biotechnology publications in six Latin American countries from 2001 to 2015. The countries studied were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba and Mexico. Before our study, there were no data available on HBT development in half of the Latin-American countries we studied, i.e., Argentina, Colombia and Chile. To include these countries in a scientometric analysis of HBT provides fuller coverage of HBT development in Latin America. The scientometric study used the Web of Science database to identify health biotechnology publications. The total amount of health biotechnology production in the world during the period studied was about 400,000 papers. A total of 1.2% of these papers, were authored by the six Latin American countries in this study. The results show a significant growth in health biotechnology publications in Latin America despite some of the countries having social and political instability, fluctuations in their gross domestic expenditure in research and development or a trade embargo that limits opportunities for scientific development. The growth in the field of some of the Latin American countries studied was larger than the growth of most industrialized nations. Still, the visibility of the Latin American research (measured in the number of citations) did not reach the world average, with the exception of Colombia. The main producers of health biotechnology papers in Latin America were universities, except in Cuba were governmental institutions were the most frequent producers. The countries studied were active in international research collaboration with Colombia being the most active (64% of papers co-authored internationally), whereas Brazil was the least active (35% of papers). Still, the domestic collaboration was even more prevalent, with Chile being the most active in such collaboration (85% of papers co-authored domestically) and Argentina the least active (49% of papers). We conclude that the Latin American countries studied are increasing their health biotechnology publishing. This strategy could contribute to the development of innovations that may solve local health problems in the region