Our group is interested in discovering new chemical reactions, and then taking advantage of those reactions to synthesize molecules. For the past several years we have studied the reactivity of positively charged carbons (cationic carbons) that share a double bond with an adjacent atom. These chemical species, called vinyl cations, are highly reactive and can be taken advantage of in a number of different ways. Our early work focused on using vinyl cations to break a carbon-car-bon bond (i.e. a ring fragmentation reaction) in a controlled manner to give useful products. More recently, we have been exploiting the reactivity of vinyl cations in bond forming reactions.