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The advent and development of organocatalysis

Nature volume 455, pages 304–308 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The use of small organic molecules as catalysts has been known for more than a century. But only in the past decade has organocatalysis become a thriving area of general concepts and widely applicable asymmetric reactions. Here I present my opinion on why the field of organocatalysis has blossomed so dramatically over the past decade.

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Figure 1: An explosion of interest.
Figure 2: Typical organocatalysts and the advantages of using organocatalysts.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (grant number R01 GM078201-01-01) for financial support, and Merck Research Laboratories and Bristol-Myers Squibb for gifts. I also thank H. Kim, R. Knowles, D. Carerra and J. Van Humbeck for their help in the preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David W. C. MacMillan is at the Merck Center for Catalysis at Princeton University, 116 Frick Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA.,

    David W. C. MacMillan

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Correspondence should be addressed to the author (dmacmill@princeton.edu).

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MacMillan, D. The advent and development of organocatalysis. Nature 455, 304–308 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07367

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