During the past 12 years or so, hardly any other field has impacted the art and science of chemical synthesis more profoundly than organocatalysis. The growth, both in academic research and in industrial use, has been breathtaking. Judging by the development of its impact factor, the Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry is currently attempting to achieve the same impact within chemistry publi...

A molecule capable of both autocatalysis and organocatalysis was synthesized. The autocatalytic activity results from the self-complementary recognition sites provided by hydrogen bonding between heterocyclic subunits and the organocatalysis resides in an embedded thiourea function. The behavior of the molecule suggests both replication and metabolism can be engineered into synthetic compounds.

LUMO-lowering organocatalysis has been extended to promote the conjugate addition of S-alkyl and -pyrrolyl silylketene acetals to α,β-unsaturated aldehydes, yielding both, syn and anti Mukaiyama-Michael products with high levels of enantioselectivity. This strategy allows for the generation of chemically useful 1,5-dicarbonyl systems and again highlights the utility of organocatalysis.

The field of organocatalysis has blossomed over the past few decades, becoming an alternative to transition-metal catalysis or even replacing the realm of transition-metal catalysis. However, a truly powerful organocatalyst with a high turnover number (TON) and turnover frequency (TOF) while retaining high enantioselectivity is yet to be discovered. Similar to metal catalysis, extremely low cat...

Asymmetric organocatalysis has attracted great interest as a synthetic strategy during the past decade. But, although the inertness of organocatalysts to moisture and oxygen offers great opportunities to tune the reaction conditions, the stereoswitchable character of organocatalysts has not been systematically studied, and most findings have been serendipitous. In this Perspective, we emphasize...

Enantioselective organocatalysis has emerged as a powerful synthetic paradigm that is complementary to metal-catalysed transformations and has accelerated the development of new methods to make diverse chiral molecules. The operational simplicity, ready availability of catalysts and low toxicity associated with organocatalysis makes it an attractive method to synthesise complex structures. Here...

After an initial period of validating asymmetric organocatalysis by using a wide range of important model reactions that constitute the essential tools of organic synthesis, the time has now been reached when organocatalysis can be used to address specific issues and solve pending problems of stereochemical relevance. This Review deals with selected studies reported in 2006 and the first half o...