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Experiments to study the potential of modified cinchona alkaloids as broadly useful chiral organic catalysts for asymmetric synthesis are analyzed. This has led to the development of a wide variety of new, highly enantioselective, general, and clean catalytic reactions.

A broadly effective parallel kinetic resolution mediated by a single organic catalyst that transforms readily accessible racemic monosubstituted succinic anhydrides into synthetically valuable chiral succinate mono esters in high enantiomeric excesses is reported. The results show that a catalyst that promotes desymmetrizations of meso or prochiral bifunctional substrates catalyzes the parallel kinetic resolution of related racemic bifunctional substrates.

Research is presented concerning the opening of prochiral cyclic anhydrides enantioselectively to result in enantiomerically enriched chiral hemiesters with two different carbonyl functionalities and multiple or single stereogenic centers.