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The advent and development of organocatalysis

Abstract

The use of small organic molecules as catalysts has been known for more than a century. But only in the past decade has organocatalysis become a thriving area of general concepts and widely applicable asymmetric reactions. Here I present my opinion on why the field of organocatalysis has blossomed so dramatically over the past decade.

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Figure 1: An explosion of interest.
Figure 2: Typical organocatalysts and the advantages of using organocatalysts.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (grant number R01 GM078201-01-01) for financial support, and Merck Research Laboratories and Bristol-Myers Squibb for gifts. I also thank H. Kim, R. Knowles, D. Carerra and J. Van Humbeck for their help in the preparation of the manuscript.

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MacMillan, D. The advent and development of organocatalysis. Nature 455, 304–308 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07367

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