Enantio and Diastereoselective Addition of Organometallic Reagents to Aldehydes and Imines

Abstract

Catalytic enantioselective addition of organometallic reagents to aldehydes and imines represents an important methodology for the preparation of optically and biologycally active compounds. In the last few years we have developed a general and reproducible methodology for the high enantioselective addition of allyltin reagents to aldehydes based on Lewis acid prepared in situ from optically active l,l’-binaphtalene-2,2’-diol (BINOL) or bis(oxazolines) (Box) and metal salts. Moreover, we have recently exploited a new strategy for the reduction of prochiral ketones (Scheme 1).