WHILE JULES ENJOYS A TASTY BEVERAGE... WE WILL EXPLAIN THE EXPERIMENTAL!

Enone alcohol 9 (2.00 g, 5.55 mmol) was dissolved in MeOH (56 mL, 0.1 M) and cooled to 0 C. 10% NaOH solution (2.0 mL, 1 equiv) was added, followed by 35% H2O2 (2.84 mL, 6 equiv, added in 3 portions in 25 min intervals). The reaction was diluted with EtOAc (75 mL) and quenched with saturated Na2S2O3 (75 mL) at 0 C. After warming to room temperature, H2O was added to dissolve the white precipitate that was formed upon quenching. The aqueous layer was extracted with EtOAc (2 x 125 mL) and the combined organic layer was washed with brine (50 mL), dried over MgSO4 and concentrated in vacuo. The resulting off-white foam was used for the next step without further purification.

The above epoxide was dissolved in PhCl (56 mL), followed by the addition of SeO2 (678 mg, 6.11 mmol, 1.1 eq) and heating to 90 C for 12 hours. The reaction was cooled to room temperature and neutralized with solid NaHCO3 (1.90 g), followed by MgSO4 (2.40 g). The dark brown suspension thus obtained was filtered through a celite pad and concentrated in vacuo. The resulting brown oil (Molecule 10) was used for the next step without further purification. This brown oil could be purified by silica gel chromatography (2:3 to 1:1 EtOAc:hexanes) to give a pale yellow foam for characterization purposes.

Renata, H.; Zhou, Q.; Baran, P.S. Science 2013, 339, 59-63.

That's right Jules, all of these materials could get expensive!

Glossary:

In Vacuo - in a vacuum