ABSTRACT
Carbon-carbon bonds are as ubiquitous in organic chemistry as the notes in music, the words in English, and the mathematics in physics. Yet, despite their foundational centrality, carbon-carbon bonds seem slighted by the central dogma, which emphasizes the roles of bonds to and between heteroatoms, such as the phosphorus-oxygen bonds in DNA and RNA, the carbon-oxygen bonds in glycans, and the carbon-nitrogen bonds in proteins. Why is carbon-carbon bond formation relegated to a relatively minor role in the central dogma?
