Mohammad Shoaib

• Asymmetric Michael addition of carbonyl compounds to nitro-olefins is one of the important carbon carbon bond forming reactions and especially so when quaternary stereogenic carbons are formed. Over the past decade a large number of organocatalysts have been developed for the asymmetric Michael addition of carbonyl compounds to nitro-olefins. Impressive results have been obtained but many parameters require improvement. For example, stereo inductions, catalyst loading, stoichiometry of starting materials, reaction time, limited substrate scope, etc. I focused on improving these parameters by designing new organocatalysts that incorporated old concepts from outside the field and by introducing new templates based on known concepts from within the field. This manifested itself in a two-prong approach: 1) tertiary-primary diamines and 2) assembled catalysts. The assembled catalysts were found to be superior for the intended goal.