Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The research proposed here focuses primarily on two classes of metal-catalysed chemical transformations to produce optically-pure products for which there are no current generally successful and applicable protocols. Optically-pure compounds are utilized in a wide variety of products that our society depends on heavily, such as pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. In particular, we have chosen to focus on expanding our investigations in one particular type of metal-catalyst ligand system that we have had tremendous success with over the last few years. N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands have been applied in catalysis for less than a decade now, but their impact has been huge in the areas of metathesis and cross coupling chemistry. The inventors of metathesis-related transformations have just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2005), and those in the cross coupling area will most certainly be following in the next few years; these reactions have revolutionized synthetic chemistry and are used every day to prepare those societally-important products mentioned above. We have new designs on our own NHC-ligated catalysts, chiral versions, that will allow metathesis and cross coupling to take place in a selective fashion, ideally in a general way so that scientists working around the globe can use them easily and reliably in their search of new chemical entities that advance the health and well-being of our society.