Stereoselective Photochemistry for the Synthesis of Bioactive Molecules

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Stereoselective chemical reactions have transformed human medicine by providing access to chemical tools to study biological systems and pharmaceutical drugs to treat disease. Although several methods exist for the synthesis of biologically valuable chiral molecules, there is great potential for discovering conceptually novel strategies in catalysis for the stereoselective synthesis of molecules not easily accessed by known methods. We are particularly interested in developing catalytic stereoselective photochemical reactions that are useful for the generation of biologically valuable chiral products but have been traditionally thought to be unamenable to asymmetric catalysis. These innovative strategies will complement the current known methods in asymmetric photochemistry. We propose to develop a general platform for enantioselective a-alkylations of carbonyl compounds with pyridinium salts and a new approach to enantioselective C–H alkylations of imines. Our long-term goals for this research program include the discovery of general and robust strategies for the catalytic conversion of simple starting materials into structurally complex and biologically active small molecules. We also anticipate that these methods will challenge established opinions of chemical reactivity that have been held about certain classes of photochemical reactions for years. By utilizing sustainable sources of energy (such as low energy visible light), the new strategies in stereoselective photochemistry discovered by our laboratory will provide an environmentally benign alternative to access medicinally relevant chiral enantioenriched molecules that are not easily synthesized by other methods. In Specific Aim 1, we propose to develop a general platform for the catalytic enantioselective a-alkylation of carbonyl compounds with pyridinium salts derived from readily available primary amines as alkylating reagents. This specific aim is guided by the hypothesis that electron poor pyridinium salts can form ground-state charge- transfer complexes with catalytically generated electron rich chiral enolate equivalents. These complexes can then undergo stereoselective couplings in the presence of low energy visible light. In the long-term, we will develop a general platform for the photochemical catalytic enantioselective a-alkylation of carbonyl compounds with pyridinium salts based on several modes of asymmetric catalysis. In Specific Aim 2, we propose to develop a general platform for the synthesis of enantioenriched amines via the photochemical C–H alkylation of acyclic imines. This specific aim is guided by the hypothesis that in the presence of visible light, a sub-stoichiometric amount of chiral Lewis acid can furnish enantioenriched amine products with high stereoselectivity by accelerating the coupling event between an imine substrate and various hydrocarbon alkylating agents. In the long-term, we will develop a general approach for the photochemical enantioselective C–H alkylation of imines with a broad range of hydrocarbon substrates through distinct modes of activation.