Asymmetric Pericyclic Transformations from Reactive Palladium Intermediates

The Pd-catalyzed decarboxylative asymmetric allylic alkylation of enolate nucleophiles is a cornerstone of our groups’ efforts to develop methodologies that directly facilitate the synthesis of stereochemically complex molecular building blocks. This thesis first focuses on our efforts to deepen our mechanistic understanding of these transformations. We then employ our insights as a base from which we expand the scope of the decarboxylative asymmetric allylic alkylation reaction, as well as develop entirely novel reaction paradigms