Non-covalent halogen bonding has been utilized in biological systems to increase the binding affinities of synthetic drugs to receptor sites in the body. These weak interactions typically mimic hydrogen bonding but offer a hydrophobic alternative to the typical polar or charged groups that are present in natural biological systems. Recently, our lab has identified halogen bonding as an important feature of electron-transfer for initiating certain radical reactions. We have strong preliminary experimental and computational evidence demonstrating the importance of halogen bonding in the context of radical fluorination, and believe a generalized strategy may be applied to a wide range of free radical reactions including heteroarene alkylation and arylation.









Ryan Baxter (University of California at Merced)