If Nature could re-write her proteinogenic amino acid instruction manual I’m fairly sure that a piperidine ring would feature in there somewhere. Perhaps in the spirit of less is more the pyrrolidine ring won out. Not so for human synthetic engineers- the piperidine ring is ubiquitous in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and advanced materials and is the

Figure 1 I guess to qualify as a reagent of the month the material has to fulfil certain criteria and commercial availability, though not essential, is very desirable. N-((Methylsulfonyl)oxy)acetimiodyl chloride (henceforth known, at least by me, as Fier’s reagent) is now available to buy from Sigma Aldrich (CAS: 1433887-06-9). The compound is an air and