Quest for the ring – Synthesis of Vaniprevir (old)

I was trying to think of a very catchy title to get readers to visit my website and take a look at my latest posting, and I thought, gees, what if I could portray the principal investigator/author and his team as a group of adventurers.  If you get a chance to use an analogy that mimics “Lord of The Rings”, you should do it, so I did.  Why did I pick Lord of the Rings ?  Because in Lord of The Rings, it was the quest about seeking out the one Ring, the ring that would rule all.  What if the ring was, let’s say, a potential HCV candidate, a 22-membered macrocycle, a possible treatment for hepatitis C.  I would say that was a mighty powerful ring, indeed.

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The paper I am drawing my analogy from is “Synthesis of Vaniprevir (MK-7009): Lactamization To Prepare A 22-Membered Macrocycle”, by Z.J. Song…