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Asymmetric catalysis

Correlating sterics in catalysis

Nature Chemistry volume 4, pages 344–345 (2012)Cite this article

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Recognizing that an analogy can be drawn between steric effects in drug discovery and asymmetric catalysis has led to a powerful technique that can explain and potentially predict the outcome of asymmetric reactions.

Synthetic chemists and medicinal chemists love analogies. In fact, scientists in these fields go to great lengths to predict future observations on the basis of consideration of the past. Such is not too unusual. Indeed, the overall practice is entirely harmonious with the precepts of the scientific method: observations, then hypothesis and predictions, eventually experiments, and ultimately reconsideration of the hypothesis1. Or, in the most rare of cases, new rules, and even more rarely, new laws. Writing in Nature Chemistry, Sigman and co-workers2 take the science of correlation, and the consideration of analogy, to a new level in the complex field of asymmetric catalysis.

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Figure 1: Complexity compounded.

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  1. Scott Miller is in the Department of Chemistry, Yale University, 225 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA,

    Scott J. Miller

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  1. Scott J. Miller
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Correspondence to Scott J. Miller.

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Miller, S. Correlating sterics in catalysis. Nature Chem 4, 344–345 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1339

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