In the afternoon of Mar. 22, the 2016 Shanghai Science and Technology Awards Conference was grandly held at Friendship Hall of Shanghai Exhibition Center. The 2016 Shanghai Science and Technology Awards were given to 265 projects (people). Prof. Shu-Li You and his colleagues Qing Gu, Chao Zheng, Qiang Kang and Chun-Xiang Zhuo won the first-class 2016 Shanghai Natural Science Award for their contribution to the “New Strategies for Stereo- and Enantioselective Direct Transformations of Aromatic Compounds”.
Under the financial supports from Ministry of Science and Technology of PRC, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, cutting-edge researches focused on new strategies for stereo- and enantioselective direct transformations of aromatic compounds were performed. “Catalytic asymmetric dearomatization (CADA)”, a novel concept for the direct transformation of aromatic compounds, along with a series of new chiral ligands, and novel synthetic methods were developed, and successfully applied in the total synthesis of several natural products with potent biological activity.
1. The concept of “Catalytic asymmetric dearomatization (CADA)” was proposed for the first time. Asymmetric dearomatization reactions of a large array of aromatic compounds were realized via transition-metal-catalysis and organocatalysis.
2. Free anilines were found to be viable directing groups of C–H activation for the first time. Two new types of chiral phosphoramidite ligands were developed based on the strategy of “aryl C–H activation”.
3. Asymmetric Friedel–Crafts alkylation by chiral Bronsted acid and asymmetric cascade reactions via sequential catalysis by combining Ru complex and chiral phosphoric acid with synergistic effect (“1+1>2”) were developed.
The results obtained under this project are highly innovative. The average impact factor of the 8 representative papers is 11.8. They received 735 citations from others in total and 91.9 on average. The 20 important papers received 1396 citations by others in total with 246 as the highest, 17 of which were highlighted by Synfacts for their significance. Some results have been highlighted positively by reviews and included in several monographs and textbooks. 6 ligands with intellectual property have been licensed to international chemical vender companies such as Strem Chemicals, J&K and Daicel Chiral Technologies and used world widely. The first contributor of the project delivered 47 plenary or invited lectures in international conferences, and received RSC Merck Award (2015) and many others. He has been appointed as an Associate Editor of Organometallics, and editorial board member or advisory board member of over 10 international journals including ACS Catal., and Chem. Commun. The novel ligands, concepts and reactions developed in this project received broad attention internationally, and have been applied by over 20 research groups in developing new synthetic methodologies. These results are of significant importance in the field of asymmetric synthesis and medicinal chemistry, significantly advance the selective transformations of aromatic compounds, and greatly promote the development of organic chemistry.
