Unraveled aromatic rings in chemical synthesis

Aromatic rings are a familiar structural motif in natural products, pharmaceuticals, proteins, and other molecules.  Synthetic chemists often install arenes intact and then carry these groups through a synthetic sequence until the target is reached.  Conversely, an aromatic ring may be viewed as a densely packaged array of contiguous functionalized reactive atoms.  I will present some historical examples and several recent examples from our laboratory where aromatic rings were unraveled to yield reactive intermediates for synthesis.