{"id":223925,"date":"2025-10-24T05:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T10:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/atomic-switching-converts-indoles-to-benzimidazoles-in-one-pot-accelerating-drug-discovery"},"modified":"2025-10-24T05:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T10:48:09","slug":"atomic-switching-converts-indoles-to-benzimidazoles-in-one-pot-accelerating-drug-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/atomic-switching-converts-indoles-to-benzimidazoles-in-one-pot-accelerating-drug-discovery","title":{"rendered":"Atomic switching converts indoles to benzimidazoles in one pot, accelerating drug discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/atomic-switching-converts-indoles-to-benzimidazoles-in-one-pot-accelerating-drug-discovery2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have achieved a new feat in molecular editing by swapping carbon for nitrogen, enabling the direct conversion of indoles into benzimidazoles. This simple switch in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41557-025-01904-x\" target=\"_blank\">one-pot method<\/a> offers a hassle-free and effective way of designing medicinally relevant molecules. The work is published in Nature Chemistry.<\/p>\n<p>Single-atom swap reactions require the selective formation and breaking of multiple bonds at the same time, making them quite rare and challenging.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers from ETH Zurich overcame these hurdles by exploiting the electron-rich indole ring\u2019s eagerness to undergo oxidative cleavage via Witkop oxidation. This step can split the electron-rich ring open to form a dicarbonyl intermediate, thereby creating an entry point for subsequent cascade reactions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have achieved a new feat in molecular editing by swapping carbon for nitrogen, enabling the direct conversion of indoles into benzimidazoles. This simple switch in a one-pot method offers a hassle-free and effective way of designing medicinally relevant molecules. The work is published in Nature Chemistry. Single-atom swap reactions require the selective formation and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}