Group Announcements
Activation of Esters (March 2012): Lin Hao recently developed NHC-mediated activation of stable esters for chiral enolate generations. This is a new activation mode enabled by N-Heterocyclic Carbene catalysts, with both fundametnal sigificance and important practical utilities. Nice work-Lin Hao (Org. Lett.)!
Oxyally Cation Chemistry (March 2012): Congratuations to Qiang Tang for his work on nucleophilic addition of indoles to oxyallyl cations (Orgn. Lett.).
Enantioselective Oxidative Dehydrogenative Coupling (Feb 2012): Congratulations to Junmin Zhang for his nice work on enantioselective oxidative coupling reactions via cooperative organic/metal catalysis (Angew).
Oxidative C-C Bond Cleavage (Jan 2012): Congratulations to Bhoopendra Tiwari for developing a metal-free C-C bond cleaving approach.With this method starting from readily available aldehydes and O2, functional chiral ketones can be easily prepared (Angew).
Acid-Catalyzed Alkylation of Aldehydes (August, 2011): The group's first work on Bronsted acid-catalyzed alpha-alkylation of aldehydes with challenging electrophiles will appear on Chem-A. Eur. J.This study offers an effective approach for aldehyde functionalizations that may be difficult to realize via the extensively studied enamine catalysis approach. Good Job-Xing Chong.
Control the Activation Modes in NHC Catalysis (August, 2011): Our work in controlling the catalytic activaton modes of enals and contrained aldehydes via NHC catalysis for reactions with a range of substrates appears in a few publications. These studies were mainly contributed by Hui Lv, Xinqiang Fang, Xingkuan Chen, and Junming Mo.
NHC-Mediated Enal Activation and Cascade Reactions (Dec, 2010): The Group's work on a rapid assembly of relatively complex molecules via NHC-Medaited enal activations will appear on Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Congratulations-Xinqiang Fang!