Directors extend their reach

Controlling the positions at which chemical groups attach to benzene rings is vital for the synthesis of materials and medicines. A reaction that targets a normally inaccessible position takes chemists closer to this goal. See Letter p.518 An innovative route to carbon–hydrogen-bond activation The functionalization of unactivated carbon-hydrogen (C–H) single bonds is an efficient and rapid method for the generation of complex molecules from simpler ones. However, it is difficult to achieve selectivity of C–H activation in target molecules possessing multiple inequivalent C–H bonds. These authors report a class of easily removable 'templates' that direct the activation of distal meta-C–H bonds (more than ten bonds away) of a tethered arene. The innovative structures that are generated through this method are extremely hard to access by traditional methods and may provide different avenues for the development of innovative C–H activation reactions.