SOS Author Spotlight: Zhi-Shi Ye (Piperazines)

Key Synthetic Routes to Piperazine Structures Comprehensively Reviewed for SOS

The piperazine ring system is widely distributed in natural products and life-saving small-molecule pharmaceuticals. In fact, piperazine is the third most common nitrogen heterocycle found in pharmaceuticals approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).* In a recent Science of Synthesis review by Prof. Zhi-Shi Ye, of the Dalian Unviersity of Technology (P. R. China), the key synthetic strategies to contructing piperazine rings are outlined, organized by the types of bonds that are formed in the ring-closing step. Also covered are methods to make piperazines by reduction of (hydro)pyrazines, with a focus on asymmetric approaches for preparing chiral piperzines. Finally, reactions where a piperazine is modified, e.g., by C-H functionalization or arylation of the ring nitrogen atoms, are discussed. To access the review on Science of Synthesis, click here.

Zhi-Shi Ye was born in Zhejiang province, China, in 1984. After completing his B.S. degree and M.S. degree at Wenzhou University, he continued to pursue his PhD degree from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP). He then worked with Prof. Mingji Dai at Purdue University (U. S. A.) as a postdoctoral fellow from 2013 to 2017. In 2017, he began his independent career at Dalian University of Technology (DUT). His research interests include the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds, asymmetric synthesis, and organometallic chemistry.

Zhi-Shi Ye coauthored a previous review on advances in piperazine synthesis with Mingji Dai and Kristen E. Gettys that was published in the journal Synthesis in 2017.

* Vitaku, E.; Smith, D. T.; Njardarson, J. T., J. Med. Chem., (2014) 57, 10 257.