Preparation of an Electrophilic 3-Methylindole Derivative: Difficulties in Forming a Stable, Suitable Material for the Preparation of Tryptophan

In an attempt to prepare stereoselectively beta-deuterated tryptophan, N-protected indole-3-methanol compounds were prepared with model studies being done on undeuterated material. Conversion of these compounds to electrophilic species proved exceptionally difficult and resulted in very low yields or recovered starting material only. A summary of the current results utilizing N-tosyl indole-3-methanol will be presented as well as efforts using N-Boc indole-3-methanol