Welcome

The major research efforts of our synthetically oriented group are directed towards the development of new catalytic asymmetric methodolgies, which are currently not feasible or not generally applicable.

The novel catalytic systems should be readily accessible and the procedures as simple as possible to develop practical methods, which ideally have the potential for large scale applications. Today, almost every chemical compound can, in principal, be somehow prepared by synthetic chemists. However, very few reactions are efficient enough from a practical point of view and suffer from a severe lack of generality. In this context especially asymmetric catalysis needs a further breakthrough to become a valuable tool for technical applications.

In our research program we incorporate two central strategies using mother nature as guide: the development of catalysts which function via highly organized transition states leading to elevated levels of stereocontrol and, where possible, to use multiple activation modes allowing for mild reaction conditions and high turnover numbers.