Gabriel J. Lovinger

Harvard University

Abstract

The discovery of fundamental reactivity and the development of selective catalytic methods to precisely construct functional molecules and chiral motifs is essential for the development of the natural sciences. This seminar will cover several cases in which the exploration of how catalysts interact with reactive intermediates has led to the discovery of new manifolds of reactivity and modes of selective catalysis. The first part of the seminar will discuss the development of enantioselective transition metal-catalyzed multi-component reactions of boron-ate complexes including “Conjunctive Couplings” as well as the discovery of “Metal-Induced Metallate Rearrangement”, an alternative to the transmetallation elementary step underpinning many metal-catalyzed reactions. The second part of the seminar will detail the development of the first enantioselective catalytic approach to access P-chiral compounds by controlling phosphonium dealkylation, including the discovery of an unusual mechanism of catalysis, “Catalysis by Ion Pair Reorganization”. The final part of the seminar will briefly address the development of a cheminformatics-based platform to enable the systematic discovery of cooperative catalysts.