Asymmetric synthesis of anticancer β-lactams via Staudinger reaction.

This study describes the symmetric synthesis of novel β-lactams derived from chrysene directed towards their SAR, as well as their biological activities against several cancer cell lines in vitro. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the synthesis and biological evaluation of optically active anticancer β-lactams. That these anticancer effects are not uniform against all tumor lines suggests that the target of the action of these compounds is highly specific.