The ubiquity of C-H bonds renders arenes and alkanes ideal starting materials in organic syntheses. However, C-H bonds are generally inert; therefore metal-mediation is typically necessary. Recent studies have shown that Cp*Rh(III) complexes are powerful catalysts in activation of arene C-H bonds. Nevertheless, given the diversity of substrates and reaction patterns, activation of both C-H substrates and the coupling partners remains necessary. The 209 Group of DICP (supervised by Prof. Dr. Xingwei Li) has performed systematic studies in C-H activation, and has recently reviewed this exciting chemistry (Acc. Chem. Res. 2015, 48, 1007.). Below are recent representative projects.
　　(1) Activation of Arenes
　　The carbon atoms in arene C-H bonds and in M-C species are nucleophilic and can only electronically match electrophiles. However, nucleophiles are more abundant in nature. To solve this limitation, the 209 Group managed to convert nucleophiles into electrophiles under in situ conditions, a process that is referred to as umpolung (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 4780; Org. Lett. 2015, 17, 920.). In order to extend the concept of umpolung, they recently further realized rhodium(III)-catalyzed hyperiodination of arenes under mild conditions, leading to facile synthesis of reactive and unsymmetrical diaryliodoniums. This process represents rather unusual umpolung of the arene because the C--H of the arene was converted to C--I(III). These diaryliodoniums can be readily functionalized by a series of nucleophiles under copper catalysis, leading to facile construction of C-C, C-N, C-O, C-S, C-P and C-Br bonds under convergent conditions. This work has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 7405. 
　　(2) Activation of sp3 C-H Bonds
　　The Rh(III)-catalyzed C-H activation are mostly restricted to C(sp2)-H substrates. In contrast, Rh-catalyzed activation of C(sp3)?H bonds is rather challenging because of the steric hindrance of C(sp3)?H bonds and the low reactivity of the resulting Rh-C(alkyl) species toward the coupling partner. On the other hand, nitrogenation via C-H activation represents an important strategy to access C-N bonds. The group of 209 recently reported rhodium(III)-catalyzed mild amidation of C(sp3)-H bonds in a broad scope of substrates including 8-methylquinoline, 8-benzylquinoline, and aliphatic cyclic and acyclic ketoximes (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201506323). In the context of C(sp3)-H activation reactions, the method is applicable to the late-stage functionalization of natural products and other complex molecules. A catalytic cycle has been proposed starting from C-H activation, decarboxylation of the amidating reagents to yield a nitrene and insertion into this transient nitrene. Experimental results also demonstrated that silver salts (AgOAc) likely both facilitated C-H activation and activated the amidating reagent.
　　These works have been financial supported by the NSFC, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China.
　　

　　Invited by Prof. Song Xue, Prof. Hong Li paid an academic visit to DICP on September 15-16.
　　Visit of Prof. Hong Li from Florida State University (By Weiwei Liu)
　　During her stay at DICP, Prof. Li presented a lecture titling “Genome engineering: fighting viruses, designer baby, and cancer research”. In her lecture, Prof. Li gave an in-depth exploration on CRISPR-Cas pathway, and how it is being used in genome engineering. She illustrated the biochemical and structural properties of the genome engineering enzymes in detail and the pitfalls of the current technology based on the CRISPR-Cas machineries. She also introduced the popular technologies on protein structure studies and compared their advantages and disadvantages.
　　(Text/Yinghui Liu,Xupeng Cao ;Photo/Weiwei Liu)
　　

　　Recently, Prof. Zhou’s group made a significant progress in deracemization of secondary and tertiary amines with a tetrahydroisoquinoline core. This work is now online published in Journal of the American Chemical Society (J. Am. Chem. Soc.2015, 137, 10496-10499.).
　　New Research Progress in Deracemization of Secondary and Tertiary Amines(By Yue Ji)
　　Classical and kinetic resolution of racemic mixtures are the most widely used methods in large-scale preparation of enantiomerically pure compounds, but they are impeded by the fact that the theoretical yield of the target chiral molecule is only50% and at least half of the starting material would be discarded. Deracemization is a highly efficient technology to obtain enantiomerically purecompounds, especially when the substrate and the desired product possess an identical chemical structure.
　　Deracemization reaction is comprised of two half-reactions that are opposite in reacting direction and completely distinct in mechanistic pathways, at least one should operate enantioselectively. Combination of oxidation with reduction is a common practice through destroying and regenerating of the chirality of stereogenic center. The main challenge of redox-driven deracemization is that oxidants and reductants easily and directly quench each other in single reactor, which usually is thermodynamically and kinetically favorable. Sequential operation or physical isolation of oxidation and reduction has been employed to overcome this problem.
　　Prof. Zhou’s group worked on asymmetric hydrogenation of heteroaromatic compounds with a series of important achievementsin the past decades, which inspired us in the deracemizations of amines. A concise deracemization of amines with tetrahydroisoquinoline core has been successfully realized by orchestrating a redox process consisted of N-bromosuccinimide(NBS) oxidation and iridum-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenation.This rare compatible redox combination enables one-pot single-operation deracemization to generate chiral 1-substituted 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinolines with up to 98% ee and 95% yield, offering a simple and scalable synthetic technique for chiral amines directly from racemic starting materials.
　　This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21472188 and 21125208) and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2014167). (Text/Photo by Yue Ji)
　　

　　Recently, Prof. Weishen Yang’s group made a progress in the synthesis of molecular-sieve films. Using self-developed electrochemical ionothermal method, an in-plane oriented and defect-free AlPO4-11 molecular-sieve film with excellent corrosion-resistant performance was in situ obtained. This work is now online published in the Journal of Angewandte Chemie International Edition (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201506183/abstract).
　　Molecular-sieve films have been widely explored as separation membranes, membrane reactors and functional coatings. These diverse applications primarily require to features, such as preferred orientations and being free of defects. How to simply prepare oriented and defect-free films remains a great challenge for the implementation and industrialization of molecular-sieve films technologies. Although a simple in situ crystallization method is favored for large-scale growth of molecular-sieve films, the random orientation and defects significantly limit performance of the films produced. Seeded growth often needs hierarch control of substrate modification and microstructural optimization to form seeds monolayer prior to oriented and defect-free film growth. However, the multi-steps limit its industrial applications.
　　Herein, we report a one-step in situ electrochemical ionothermal method that combines a controllable electric field with ionic liquids that have negligible vapor pressure, high ionic conductivity and wide electrochemical windows. The Al plane was both used as the electrode and the substrate, we then applied the external electric field to active the substrate surface, accelerating the interface reaction between the substrate and H3PO4 to provide the Al source. Furthermore, the negatively charged substrate can electrically adsorb the cations of ionic liquids that act as the structure-directing agents of AlPO4-11 molecular-sieve film. The two together produce a highly in-plane oriented AlPO4-11 molecular-sieve film in an open-vessel. It should be noted that the entire substrate surface could be completely converted to AlPO4-11 because positively charged protons and [emim]+ cations could readily reach any bare place on the surface under electric field and enable AlPO4-11 formation. Thus, the electrochemical mechanism promotes free defects of the film that was confirmed by DC polarization tests. And the tests also indicated the in-plane oriented film has an excellent corrosion-resistant performance. This simple, controllable method may scale-up easily in the future.
　　This work was financially supported by the 100-Talent project of Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Natural Science Foundation of China. (Text/Photo by Tongwen Yu and Prof. Wenling Chu )
　　New Research Progress in Molecular-Sieve Films

　　On August 21st-23rd, the Symposium of the national enzyme engineering and glyco-engineering in 2015 was held in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province,which was sponsored by the enzyme engineering specialized committee of Chinese society for microbiology, the glyco-engineering specialized committee of Chinese society for bioengineering and Zhenjiang Dongfang bioengineering Co. Ltd. About 380 representatives from 72 research institutions, universities and enterprises attended this symposium. In the opening ceremony, welcoming speeches were given by Ding Chunhua who is the chairman of this symposium and the president of Zhenjiang Dongfang bioengineering Co. Ltd, along with Prof. Jin Cheng from Institute of Microbiology Chinese Academy of Sciences. In addition, congratulations for the opening of this symposium were expressed from Yang Haihua , deputy secretary-general of Chinese society for microbiology along with Ma Shuheng , vice chairman and secretary-general of Chinese society of bioengineering.
　　After the opening ceremony, a grand awarding ceremony was held.Prof. Qu Yinbo from Shandong University received the 4th “National enzyme engineering outstanding contribution award” for his outstanding contribution to the research and application of cellulase. “Zhang Shuzheng glyco-science outstanding contribution award” was given to Prof. Shao Feng from Beijing Institute of Biological Sciences and Prof.Ye Xinshan from Peking University for their outstanding work on the glycosylation mechanisms of host innate immunity system by bacterial infection and glycochemistry, respectively. Prof. Wang Zhongfu from Northwest University, Prof. Cao Hongzhi from the national glyco-engineering research center in Shandong University and Prof. Yin Heng from our institute were honored with “Zhang Shuzheng glyco-science award for outstanding youth” for their work on glycomics, chemical glycobiology and glyco-engineering,respectively.
　　The “Zhang Shuzheng glyco-science award” is established by the glyco-engineering specialized committee of Chinese society for biology engineering which is named after Zhang Shuzheng , the national well-known academician of microbiology and glycobiology. The award is designed to honor the researchers who make great contribution to the field of glycobiology and glyco-engineering.(Photo/ Text by Wang wenxia/Zhang xu)
　　Yin Heng received the 1st " Zhang Shuzheng glyco-science award for outstanding youth”

　　Recently, the DICP Research Group led by Prof. Jianhua Qin has made progress on flexible fabrication of shape-controlled collagen building blocks for self-assembly of 3D microtissues based on microfluidic technique. The results were recently published on Small (DOI: 10.1002/smll.201500556) as Frontispiece, which were also highlighted by Materials View China
　　Scaffold material is one of the three major elements in tissue engineering. The biocompatibility of material design and preparation has been paid attention. With the rapid development of biological material, depending on the materials properties and cell type, scientists can fabricate various "cell-scaffold" blocks and use them as a basic unit in complex bionic organization building and engineering application. Collagen is a naturally occurring protein that constitutes a major part of the fibrillar extracellular matrix (ECM) in vivo, which can create simulative functioning tissue and provide a physiologically relevant microenvironment for cells. However, due to the fragility and weak mechanical strength of collagen, it is a big challenge to manipulate cell-laden collagen as a building block or to form a collagen block with a well-defined structure by using conventional method, thus limiting its applicability in the exploration of mechanism of tissue growth and tissue reconstitution.
　　In this research, a novel and straightforward strategy has been presented for generating shape-controlled collagen building blocks with well-defined architecture via a membrane-templated microdevice. This approach allows the collagen blocks to self-assemble into 3D tissue-like constructs with spatially distributions of cell types and functions. We describe the spontaneous self-assembly of cell-laden collagen blocks into tubular structure with predetermined configurations at tissue level, a process that is driven by the synergistic effects of cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions. These results open new possibilities for in vitro tissue models for organogenesis studies and tissue engineering applications.
　　New Progress in Collagen Building Blocks for Self-Assembly with Microfluidic Devices