With this award, the Chemical Synthesis Program is funding Professor Norito Takenaka of the University of Miami to develop asymmetric organocatalytic methods for carbon-carbon bond forming reactions including ketimine allylation and crotylation, periselective nitroalkene Diels-Alder reactions, and Claisen rearrangements. These asymmetric reactions will be promoted by chiral Lewis base catalysts or Brønsted acid catalysts, which are based on previously unexplored 1-azahelicenes. Studies emphasizing understanding helicene-derived catalyst structures, reactivity and selectivity will also be undertaken to enhance mechanistic understanding.
Broader impacts include the rigorous training of undergraduate and graduate students in modern asymmetric synthesis, and broadening participation through the inclusion of researchers at the University of Miami from groups that have historically been underrepresented in sciences. The scientific broader impacts include the development of a fundamentally new class of chiral catalysts with advantages in efficiency, economy, and environmental friendliness over stoichiometric chiral reagents. Such advances are expected to benefit the basic synthetic research community, as well as the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries that rely upon methods to access enantio-enriched small organic molecules. The ease of handling these bench-stable catalysts adds to their likely impact upon industrial and academic science.
