The hook-and-slide strategy also works on carboxylic acids, though the molecules have to be temporarily made into amides to make the directing group work. Altering the final hydrolysis restores ...

Woodward championed a so-called β-lactam structure, which contained a cyclic amide fused to a five-membered ring 2 , whereas another group, led by Robert Robinson, noted that model β-lactams did ...