A Computer Conquers Tactical Combinations

Specialists in molecule making often employ the counterintuitive retrosynthetic strategy of initially increasing molecular complexity en route to simpler starting materials to produce synthetic sequences of unparalleled brevity. In this issue of Chem, Gryzbowski and co-workers describe how a computer algorithm can similarly identify these so-called “tactical combinations” and powerfully apply them to automatically identify highly efficient routes to complex molecular targets. Although computers can't yet outperform masters of synthetic organic chemistry, this breakthrough suggests that this day is coming.