It was eight to ten years ago when initial steps were taken to organize a symposium on the chemistry of natural products. In the interim three successful symposia have been held with the fourth one now under way. During these years an ever increasing number of communications, describing the elucidation of the structure and syntheses of many complex products occurring in plant and animal life, h...

The brucine N-oxide promoted Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) reaction of vinyl ketones with aldehydes has been achieved. The corresponding asymmetric version of MBH reaction was also investigated, and the electron-deficient aryl aldehydes have emerged as suitable reaction partners for vinyl ketones; where proline was employed as a co-catalyst. In this dual catalyst system, proline is believed to fo...

Phenylalanine has previously been resolved by fractional crystallization of the brucine salt of formyl-nn-phenylalanine (1) or of the cinchonine salt of benzoyl-nn-phenylalanine (2). Enzymatic methods have also been used for the resolution. According to the method of Gilbert, Price, and Greenstein (3), racemic phenylalanine is resolved by subjecting its Nchloroacetylated derivative to asymmetri...