A general alkyl-alkyl cross-coupling enabled by redox-active esters and alkylzinc reagents

Carbon links without helpful neighbors It's an irony of modern organic chemistry that the simplest-looking carbon-carbon bonds are often the hardest to make. Most reactions owe their efficiency to neighboring double bonds or oxygen and nitrogen atoms that linger in the products. Qin et al. now present a broadly applicable protocol for making C-C bonds in the absence of such surrounding help. The nickel-catalyzed process couples a zinc-activated carbon center to an ester that's poised to lose CO 2 . The ready availability of numerous carboxylic acids (which are easily converted to esters) contributes to the reaction's versatility. Science , this issue p. 801