Professor Dean Toste
August 06, 2007
Chemistry professor Dean Toste has achieved a breakthrough in the design of catalysts that selectively produce chiral compounds. Toste and co-workers report in Science magazine that the catalyst molecule doesn't need to do all the chiral work itself. Using chiral anions to influence chirality in metal-catalyzed reactions has been reported before, but this is the first time anyone has achieved such high enantioselectivities with this strategy, says Toste.
C&EN:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i31/8531notw8.html
Chemistry World:
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/July/26070702.asp
Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5837/496
Nature: (see third summary from the top)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7153/full/448514a.html