Flexible catalyst systems open up nitrile chemistry

US organic chemists have devised a powerful pair of synthetic strategies involving nitriles, offering new ways of controlling stereochemistry. Amir Hoveyda from Boston College and his team can now catalytically and enantioselectively convert nitriles to multifunctional amines without any protection, deprotection or oxidation-state adjustments.¹ ‘To our surprise, our report is the first example of catalytic enantioselective carbon-based nucleophile additions to nitrile,’ says Hoveyda, who is now setting up a group at the University of Strasbourg, France.