And now on to Hexacyclinol.  Those who pick up my Google Reader feed (on the right, titled ‘What I’m Reading’ will have seen that I noticed the Org. Lett. published by Saielli and Bagno, but I didn’t really feel the need to go over the corpse of this scientific abomination again.  Really, let La Clair fade into obscurity.  A lot of people, my self included, would like to see some sort of definitive conclusion to this case of synthetic fraud, but it ain’t gonna happen.  La Clair isn’t about to announce that he made it all up, so how much more proof can we garner?  Without a synthesis of his ‘supposed hexacyclinol’ (I’d rather call it fraudulone, or perhaps fakamycin…), nothing can be proved.  Frankly, this would be an enormous waste of money, so lets just let this one go.

I’ve written loads about this in four posts (1, 2 – which contains my opinions, 3, 4), and frankly nothing has changed, other than the fact that some fancy DFT calculations have condemned his proton nmr; Rychnovsky’s carbon prediction was enough for this chemist.

A further note:  eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that this blog was up-and-running when the original La Clair bollocks synthesis was published.  With such an amazing structure (hmmm…), only one author (*cough, cough*…), and that now worthless Wiley VIP status, you’d think it’d have been a dead cert for me to cover.  However, even in my early years I knew the smell of refluxed turd, and decided to stay well clear.  If only that prescience extended to knowing which Buchwald Hartwigs will work, and which won’t…