A method is described by which it is possible to determine the high barrier to ring inversion and hindered rotation by neat racemization of optically active compounds when the racemization is caused by ring inversion or hindered rotation. The method is based preparation of sufficiently pure enantiomers, mainly by chromatography on swollen microcrystalline triacetylcellulose (TAC). By this t...

Restricted rotations of chemical bonds can lead to the presence of persistent conformational chirality in molecules lacking stereocenters. We report the development of first-of-a-kind predictive rules that enable identification of conformational chirality and prediction of racemization barriers in the diarylether heptanoid (DAEH) natural products that do not possess stereocenters. These empiric...

One of the biggest challenges in asymmetric synthesis is to prevent racemization of enantiopure starting materials. However, at least some of the enantiopurity is lost in most of the existing reactions used in synthetic organic chemistry. This translates into unnecessary material losses. Naturally enantiopure proteinogenic amino acids that can be transformed into many useful intermediates in dr...

Sulfoxides are uncommon substrates for transition-metal catalysis due to their propensity to inhibit catalyst turnover. In a collaborative effort with Ken Houk, we developed the first dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of allylic sulfoxides using asymmetric rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation. A detailed mechanistic analysis of this transformation using both experimental and theoretical methods revea...

We applied Horse Liver Alcohol Dehydrogenase (HLADH) to the enantioselective synthesis of six (2S)-2-arylpropanols, useful intermediates in the synthesis of Profens. The influence of substrate structure and reaction conditions on yields and enantioselectivity were investigated. The high yields and high enantioselectivity towards the (S)-enantiomer obtained in the bioreduction of 2-arylpropionic...

A general method for the N-arylation of amino acid esters with aryl triflates is described. Both α- and β-amino acid esters, including methyl, tert-butyl, and benzyl esters, are viable substrates. Reaction optimization was carried out by design of experiment (DOE) analysis using JMP software. The mild reaction conditions, which use t-BuBrettPhos Pd G3 or G4 precatalyst, result in minimal racemi...

We have reported elsewhere the racemization of lysine by cell preparations of Proteus vulgaris strain ATCC 4669 (Huang et al., 1958). The simplest explanation of the results presented is that Proteus vulgaris contains a lysine racemase. The distribution of this activity in bacteria has now been investigated. Almost a hundred species, from eleven families, have been examined. Only nine species, ...

We address the purification of target enantiomer a chiral compound from its racemic mixture, through simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography either as standalone or combined with recycle and racemization undesired enantiomer. carry out comparative assessment two processes focus on role kinetics, effect selectivity stationary phase, upstream symmetric synthesis racemate. The analysis is genera...