UCLA chemists break a 100-year-old chemistry rule with new molecule

Technology Jan 23, 2026

UCLA scientists just proved that a classic chemistry rule from the 1920s—Bredt's Rule—can be broken.
Led by Neil Garg, the team created "anti-Bredt olefins" (ABOs), molecules with double bonds in places once thought impossible.
These ABOs are tricky to make and super unstable, so the researchers had to use special tricks to keep them intact and confirm their structure.

Why should you care?

This breakthrough could open up new ways to design medicines and materials by letting chemists build more complex molecules than before.
The discovery means some old limits in chemistry might not be as strict as we thought, which is pretty exciting for science and future drug development.