David Bastida Borrell, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Melchiorre, has defended his PhD Thesis entitled ‘Novel Enantioselective Aminocatalytic Processes by means of Vinylogous Reactivity and Photoredox Catalysis’ (assigned to the Organic and Analytical Chemistry Department of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili) publicly on December 15th at the ICIQ auditorium.
The members of his evaluation committee were: Prof. Marco Bandini (University of Bologna), Prof. José Alemán (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) and Prof. Rubén Martín (ICIQ).
Dr. Bastida Borrell with his supervisor, Prof. Paolo Melchiorre, and the evaluation committee
Abstract:
In the present thesis it is shown how aminocatalysis may be used to solve some problems for synthetic organic chemists. Combination of aminocatalysis with the concept of vinylogy is the key concept for the enantioselective functionalization of remote positions of carbonyl compounds. In the first chapter, a bifunctional primary amine-thiourea catalyst that can combine H-bond-directing activation of the electrophile with the dienamine activation is used for an asymmetric vinylogous aldol reaction. It has been demonstrated that using a chiral secondary amine, the potential of organocascade catalysis can be expanded by including vinylogous reactivity, functionalizing exclusive γ and δ positions. In the last chapter, it has been developed an enantioselective radical conjugate addition of enones by trapping photochemically generated carbon-centered radicals using iminium ion activation.