Schiff Bases: A Short Survey on an Evergreen Chemistry Tool

The review reports a short biography of the Italian naturalized chemist Hugo Schiff and an outline on the synthesis and use of his most popular discovery: the imines, very well known and popular as Schiff Bases. Recent developments on their “metallo-imines” variants have been described. The applications of Schiff bases in organic synthesis as partner in Staudinger and hetero Diels-Alder reactions, as “ privileged” ligands in the organometallic complexes and as biological active Schiff intermediates/targets have been reported as well.