Patent 7560596 was granted and assigned to Massachusetts Institute of Technology on July, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
One aspect of the present invention relates to ligands for transition metals. A second aspect of the present invention relates to the use of catalysts comprising these ligands in various transition-metal-catalyzed carbon-heteroatom and carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions. The subject methods provide improvements in many features of the transition-metal-catalyzed reactions, including the range of suitable substrates, number of catalyst turnovers, reaction conditions, and efficiency. For example, improvements have been realized in transition metal-catalyzed: aryl amination reactions; aryl amidation reactions; Suzuki couplings; and Sonogashira couplings. In certain embodiments, the invention relates to catalysts and methods of using them that operate in aqueous solvent systems.