Harnessing Non-Covalent Interactions to Address Selectivity Challenges in Catalysis

Non-covalent interactions play a crucial in all manner of chemical and biological processes. In recent times, the incorporation of non-covalent interactions into the design of small molecule catalysts has revolutionised the field of enantioselective catalysis. Our research is centred around applying catalyst designs incorporating non-covalent interactions to tackle selectivity challenges in synthetic chemistry, concerning both positional selectivity and enantioselectivity. This talk will discuss work in which such an approach is used to direct reactive transition metals through the use of novel bifunctional ligands. It will also cover non-covalent strategies for control of enantioselectivity in radical reactions.