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Prized for their ability to rapidly generate chemical complexity by building new ring systems and stereocentres1, cycloaddition reactions have featured in numerous total syntheses2 and are a key component in the education of chemistry students3. Similarly, carbon-carbon (C-C) cross-coupling methods are integral to synthesis because of their programmability, modularity and reliability4. Within the area of drug discovery, an overreliance on cross-coupling has led to a disproportionate representation of flat architectures that are rich in carbon atoms with orbitals hybridized in an sp2 manner5. Despite the ability of cycloadditions to introduce multiple carbon sp3 centres in a single step, they are less used6. This is probably because of their lack of modularity, stemming from the idiosyncratic steric and electronic rules for each specific type of cycloaddition. Here we demonstrate a strategy for combining the optimal features of these two chemical transformations into one simple sequence, to enable the modular, enantioselective, scalable and programmable preparation of useful building blocks, natural products and lead scaffolds for drug discovery. Combining cycloaddition and carbon-carbon cross-coupling offers a way of simplifying the enantioselective preparation of chemical building blocks, natural products and medicines such as the antipsychotic asenapine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of β-alkoxy α-keto amides as pronucleophiles in the enantioselective Mannich type reaction with p-nosyl imines is presented. The proper combination of β-alkoxy α-keto amides and a squaramide-based Brønsted base catalyst produced highly enantioenriched Mannich adducts, which may be transformed into functionalized amino diols., (© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

We report the first diastereo- and enantioselective formal Mannich reaction of 2-pyridyl acetates which gives rise to α- and β-functionalized 2-substituted pyridines. Key for success is the previous azaarene N-oxide formation enabling α-carbon deprotonation by a mild bifunctional Brønsted base and subsequent reaction with N-Boc imines under almost perfect stereocontrol., (© 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)