Complex Organic Synthesis: Structure, Properties, and/or Function?

In 1956 – the year R. B. Woodward’s famous Perspective was published – I was a senior in high school. The next year, when I started college and joined a research group, it was still all the (I thought, hopefully and in anticipation, “we”) organic chemistry graduate students talked about. The vision was so astonishing, and the ambition so grand, that it was transfixing. It clearly marked the transformation of the field of synthesis from one state into something entirely different – one marked by disciplined, elegant, complexity. I never actually met Woodward (other than secondarily, through one of his postdocs, to let me know of his intense displeasure at my use of his IR spectrometers in the middle of the night), but I did go to Woodward group seminars, where I learned humility, as well as new definitions of “endurance” and bladder control (these seminars were – or seemed – very, very long to someone who understood very little of what was going on). Still, it was impossible for me not to share the feeling of the birth of a new field. I did not become a “synthetic organic chemist,” but almost all the research that my colleagues and I have done (and do) involves organic synthesis. The ability to put together molecules – bit-by-bit, simple or complex – is one of chemistry’s great accomplishments, and a source of amazement to those in many other fields of science. More than one physicist has told me that s/he cannot believe that it is possible to manipulate bonds between individual atoms with the skill that organic chemists do. When I look at a complex structure assembled in a beautifully organized campaign, I also am amazed. That said, all fields of science morph with time. The phrase “organic synthesis” has come to mean “synthesis of structurally complex natural products”, or, perhaps, “synthesis of complicated molecules with pharmaceutical activity.” Nature, and relevance to healthcare, define the targets, and provide the utilitarian justification for the effort. Is there (or should there be) more to it than that? Will this style of organic synthesis – a style that emphasizes technical proficiency and complexity rather than simplicity, breadth, and utility – persist? Natural products, and selected, specific types of transformations, provide endless technically interesting problems – in structure, in synthetic design, in development of reagents – but does their solution justify the effort that goes into them? Are there other types of problems that need the skills of experts in synthesis, and other types of opportunity than those that have historically been most exhaustively studied? Aside from the technical focus, there is another issue. Much of complex organic synthesis goes on in universities. In addition to performing research, university research groups have the important obligation to teach students what they need to know for their intended careers. Is the training that students currently receive in organic synthesis the one that best prepares them for their future (and which may possibly be entirely different than their research director’s past)?