Recent advances in the chemistry of natural products

Abstract

In this lecture, an account is presented of the high points in the progress towards the synthesis of vitamin B12made during 1968–1970 in the collaborative programme carried out at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zürich and in Cambridge at Harvard, under the leadership of Albert Eschenmoser and the lecturer. The point of furthest advance is represented by the obtention by total synthesis of heptamethyl bisnorcobyrinate (IX), which has been found to be identical with a sample of natural provenance. © 1971, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.