CHEMISTRY BY MARYE ANNE FOX Department of Chemistry University of Texas, Austin Austin, Tex. " Effective planning of strategy represents the most important intellectual attainment of synthetic organic chemistry. One of the masters has provided an overview in a recently published Robert Robinson lecture. E.J. Corey, “Retrosynthetic thinking, Essentials and exam- pels," Chemical Society Reviews, 17 (2), 111-34, June 1988. " The ability to cleave DNA at will at a specific position is a m

CHEMISTRY BY MARYE ANNE FOX Department of Chemistry University of Texas, Austin Austin, Tex. " Host-guest chemistry is an important vehicle for characterizing the factors involved as molecules react. Two recently published Nobel lectures presents fascinating overview that takes the reader from Pedersen’s original discovery of macrocyclic ethers through the preorganization and structural recognition in Cram’s early studies to more recent uses of hosts as enzyme mimics and synthe

CHEMISTRY BY MARYE ANNE FOX Department of Chemistry University of Texas, Austin Austin, Tex. " Organoboranes can be readily converted to other functional groups under mild conditions, making them versatile intermediates of organic synthesis. Their use in optically active compounds has been reviewed recently. H.C. Brown, B. Singaram, “Development of a simple general procedure for synthesis of the pure enantiomers via chiral organoboranes,” Accounts of Chemical Research, 21 (8), 2

CHEMISTRY BY MARYE ANNE FOX Department of Chemistry University of Texas, Austin Austin, Tex. " The formation of rapidly responding materials for altering electronic input signals would have important consequences for fundamental science as well as for imaging systems. The characteristics of an electronic shift-register memory at the molecular level have been described in a recent and provocative paper. J.J. Hopfield, J.N. Onuchic, D.N. Beratan, “A molecular shift register based on elect