New efficient iterative approaches to polycyclic ethers.

The imposing structures of the marine polyether ladder toxins have inspired synthetic chemists to develop many clever methods for assembling these complex skeletons. One intriguing strategy is to use a short and reliable sequence of reactions to build successive rings in an iterative fashion. The ideal approach should tolerate variation in ring size and substitution at the bridgehead positions. This paper offers an overview of recent progress in this field.