Volume 77 in the venerable Organic Reactions series contains two chapters that represent unique and important name reactions, chapters which are also composed, in part, by their inventors. The first chapter by Jin Kun Cha and Oleg G. Kulinkovich describes a truly remarkable transformation of carboxylic acid derivatives (esters, amides, carbonates, nitriles) into heteroatom-substituted cyclopropanes. This reaction now bears the name "Kulinkovich Cyclopropanation" and is unique because it constitutes the assembly of the three-membered ring by the formation of two bonds to a carboxyl group (or equivalent) from a 1,2-dimetallic reagent. The second chapter by Stuart W. McCombie, William B. Motherwell, and Matthew Tozer represents an homage to one of the giants of organic chemistry in the 20th century, Sir Derek H. R. Barton. Throughout his distinguished career, Derek Barton made innumerable contributions to structure determination, stereochemistry, and synthetic methods development for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize (together with Odd Hassal) in 1969. During his postdoctoral stint with Barton at Imperial College, Stu McCombie discovered and developed the radical deoxygenation of secondary alcohols that has become known as the "Barton-McCombie Reaction."

Scott E. Denmark received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and his graduate degree (D.Sc. Tech.) from the ETH-Zürich in 1980. He joined the faculty at Illinois in the same year. His research interests are in structural, synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry.