Electrochemical methoxymethylation of alcohols - a new, green and safe approach for the preparation of MOM ethers and other acetals.

A new, green, safe, cost-effective and highly efficient electrochemical approach for the methoxymethylation of alcohols and phenols was successfully developed. The methodology was also applied to the synthesis of substituted acetals.

Integrated Testing Strategies (ITS) for safety assessment.

Integrated testing strategies (ITS), as opposed to single definitive tests or fixed batteries of tests, are expected to efficiently combine different information sources in a quantifiable fashion to satisfy an information need, in this case for regulatory safety assessments. With increasing awareness of the limitations of each individual tool and the development of highly targeted tests and predictions, the need for combining pieces of evidence increases. The discussions that took place during this workshop, which brought together a group of experts coming from different related areas, illustrate the current state of the art of ITS, as well as promising developments and identifiable challenges. The case of skin sensitization was taken as an example to understand how possible ITS can be constructed, optimized and validated. This will require embracing and developing new concepts such as adverse outcome pathways (AOP), advanced statistical learning algorithms and machine learning, mechanistic validation and "Good ITS Practices".

Highly chemoselective reduction of carbonyl groups in the presence of aldehydes.

The exquisite ability of diethylaluminum benzenethiolate to efficiently discriminate between aldehydes and other carbonyl functions enables the chemoselective in situ reduction of ketones and methyl esters in the presence of aldehydes. This potent strategy avoids the usual drawbacks of traditional protecting group methodologies and could be extended to various other transformations.

Radical arylaminomethylation of unactivated alkenes.

Xanthates derived from open chain or cyclic N-chloromethylanilides are capable of adding to various unactivated alkenes to give adducts which, in suitable cases, can be made to undergo ring closure onto the aromatic ring. This flexible arylaminomethylation of alkenes allows the rapid synthesis of open chain or polycyclic aniline derivatives.