Made for students, by students: Integrating former-student voices into a de-densified biochemistry laboratory.

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of peer communication networks for student outcomes. Herein, we describe the use of supplemental instructional videos created by former students and integrated into electronic lab notebooks, to restore the lost community-learning component using student voices in a de-densified upper-division biochemistry laboratory.

Unified Synthesis of Azepines by Visible-Light-Mediated Dearomative Ring Expansion of Aromatic N-Ylides.

Herein, we report a unified approach to azepines by dearomative photochemical rearrangement of aromatic N-ylides. Deprotonation of quaternary aromatic salts with 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (DBU) or N,N,N',N'-tetramethylquanidine (TMG) under visible light irradiation provides mono- and polycyclic azepines in yields up to 98%. This ring-expansion presents a new mode of access to functionalized azepines from N-heteroarenes using two straightforward steps and simple starting materials.