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In the research paper illustrated here, scientists at Harvard University have come up with a clever way to make chemical reactions more flexible. They focused on a type of reaction called "cross-coupling", which is commonly used to make new molecules for medicines and other important products.

Normally, in cross-coupling reactions, chemists have to carefully choose the starting materials to get the right product. But the Harvard team has found a way to change this. They discovered that by using a special catalyst (a substance that speeds up chemical reactions), they could make the starting materials swap places, creating different products without needing new starting materials each time.

They tested their method on different molecules and found that it worked well, even with different types of substances. They also found out how the process works at the molecular level, which will help other scientists understand and use the method more effectively.

This research opens up new ways of making molecules more flexibly and efficiently, which could lead to faster development of new medicines and other useful products.