Design of new reactions using N-Heterocyclic carbenes as organocatalysts

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Due to their unique properties, N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have attracted a lot of attention from the chemistry community. Being powerful electron donors, they have rapidly established themselves as an important class of ligands for transition metals. Moreover, they can also act as catalysts in the absence of transition metals. Common to most reactions that are accelerated by NHCs is the reversal of the normal reactivity of aldehydes. These functional groups, which usually react as electrophiles (electron-acceptors), become nucleophiles (electron-donors) in the catalyzed process. Despite this unique property of reactivity reversal, NHCs have only recently been applied to a rapidly increasing number of hitherto unknown reactions. Our own efforts in this area have focused on novel ring expansion reactions and on the development of domino reactions initiated by NHCs. This proposal details four new directions we will pursue over the next five years. New domino Diels-Alder and Stetter reactions will be designed based on the concept of reactivity reversal, and more efficient catalysts will be developed. Nucleophilic catalysis, a less-explored mode of reactivity for NHCs will also be explored. These advances will be applied to the synthesis of biologically active natural products and their analogues.