Construction of linear chiral centres via copper catalyzed additions

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Oxford University

Dr. Zhenbo Gao received his Chemistry bachelor degree from Nankai University in 2013. After that, he went to Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College and obtained master of engineering degree with honours. He then continued his research in chemistry in the University of Oxford in 2014, and will receive his Dphil. this year. During his PhD period, he published three high impact journals (JCR Q1) alone, and applied a US patent of developed 2nd generation quaternary centre catalyst as first inventor. Meanwhile, Fluorchem and Strem Chemicals have been authorized to commercialize the catalyst in Europe and US respectively.

The field of asymmetric catalysis has grown rapidly due to its high efficiency in preparing enantiopure molecules. Hundreds of groups have delved into developing novel asymmetric catalysis approaches. However, most work merely focused on constructing cyclic chiral centres, and few methods of building linear chiral centres have been reported. In this talk, a novel copper catalyzed asymmetric conjugate addition with alkylzirconium species forming linear chiral centres is disclosed. We first discover new copper catalysts by devising novel chiral ligands. Then we expand our approach from enones to other linear Michael acceptors, unsaturated thioesters, dienones, dienthioates, ynenones, and ynethioates. These various adducts could be further used as building blocks in total synthesis and access to more complicated products. At last, we will introduce the preparation of commercially important fragrances with excellent yields and ee’s via our approach.

时间：2018年4月24日下午2:00-3:00

地点：办公楼105

All are welcome！