Pyrazinochlorins – at long last

A paper describing the expansion of a pyrrolic building block in meso-tetraphenylporphyrins by a nitrogen atom generating pyrazinoporphyrins was finally published (Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2016, DOI: 10.1002/ejoc.201501436)! The work goes back to 2000, when CB himself still worked in the lab and made the stable nickel complexes, but he was never able to make the much trickier to make but more interesting free base derivatives. This was accomplished by Michelle Head (neé Dean), PhD 20011 (her pyrazinoporphyrin syntheses were done in 2007-2008), and Gloria Zarate, M.S. 2010! Good things sometimes take a long while!