Carbon-carbon bond forming reactions are vital to the synthesis of natural products and pharmaceuticals. In 2003, the 200 best selling prescription drugs reported in Med Ad News are all organic compounds. Synthesizing these compounds involves many carbon-carbon bond forming processes, which are not trivial and typically generate large amounts of waste byproducts. Thus, development of an atom economical and environmentally benign carbon-carbon bond forming methodology is highly desirable. Hydrogenation is one of the most powerful catalytic reactions and has been utilized extensively in industry. Although carbon-carbon bond forming reactions under hydrogenation conditions, such as, alkene hydroformylation and the Fischer-Tropsch reaction are known, they are limited to the coupling of unsaturated hydrocarbons to carbon monoxide. Recently, a breakthrough was made by the Krische group, who demonstrated that catalytic hydrogenative C-C bond forming reactions can be extended to the coupling partners other than carbon monoxide. This discovery has led to the development of a new class of carbon-carbon bond forming reactions. Herein, an overview of transition metal-catalyzed reductive couplings of [pi]-unsaturated systems employing various external reductants is summarized in Chapter 1. Chapters 2-4 describe a series of rhodium- and iridium-catalyzed asymmetric hydrogenative couplings of various alkynes to a wide range of imines and carbonyl compounds. These byproduct-free transformations provide a variety of optically enriched allylic amines and allylic alcohols, which are found in numerous natural products, and are used as versatile precursors for the synthesis of many biologically active compounds. Transfer hydrogenation represents another important class of reactions in organic chemistry. This process employs hydrogen sources other than gaseous dihydrogen, such as isopropanol. The Krische group succeeded in developing a new family of transfer hydrogenative carbon-carbon bond formation reactions. Chapter 5 presents two novel ruthenium- and iridium-catalyzed transfer hydrogenative carbonyl allylation reactions. The catalytic system employing iridium complexes enables highly enantioselective carbonyl allylation from both the alcohol and aldehyde oxidation level. These systems define a departure from the use of preformed organometallic reagents in carbonyl additions that transcends the boundaries of oxidation level.

By simply hydrogenating enones in the presence of aldehydes at ambient temperature and pressure, aldol adducts are generated under neutral conditions in the absence of any stoichiometric byproducts. Using cationic rhodium complexes modified by tri(2-furyl)phosphine, highly syn-diastereoselective reductive aldol additions of vinyl ketones are achieved. Finally, using novel monodentate TADDOL-like phosphonite ligands, the first highly diastereo- and enantioselective reductive aldol couplings of vinyl ketones were devised. These studies, along with other works from our laboratory, demonstrate that organometallics arising transiently in the course of catalytic hydrogenation offer byproduct-free alternatives to preformed organometallic reagents employed in classical carbonyl addition processes. Existing methods for enantioselective carbonyl allylation, crotylation and tert-prenylation require stoichiometric generation of pre-metallated nucleophiles, and often employ stoichiometric chiral modifiers. Under the conditions of transfer hydrogenation employing an ortho-cyclometallated iridium C, O-benzoate catalyst, enantioselective carbonyl allylations, crotylations and tert-prenylations are achieved in the absence of stoichiometric metallic reagents or stoichiometric chiral modifiers. Moreover, under transfer hydrogenation conditions, primary alcohols function dually as hydrogen donors and aldehyde precursors, enabling enantioselective carbonyl addition directly from the alcohol oxidation level.

Carbon-carbon bond forming reactions are fundamental transformations for constructing structurally complex organic building blocks, especially in the realm of natural products synthesis. Classical protocols for forming a C-C bond typically require the use of stoichiometrically preformed organometallic reagents, constituting a major drawback for organic synthesis on process scale. Since the emergence of transition metal catalysis in hydrogenation and hydrogenative C-C coupling reactions, atom and step economy have become important considerations in the development of sustainable methods. In the Krische laboratory, our goal is to utilize abundant, renewable feedstocks, so that the reactions can proceed in an efficient and atom-economical manner. Our research focuses on developing new C-C bond forming protocols that transcend the use of stoichiometric, preformed organometallic reagents, in which [pi]-unsaturates can be employed as surrogates to discrete premetallated reagents. Under transition metal catalyzed transfer hydrogenation conditions, alcohols can engage in C-C coupling, avoiding unnecessary redox manipulations prior to carbonyl addition. Stereoselective variants of these reactions are also under extensive investigation to effect stereo-induction by way of chiral motifs found in ligands and counterions. The research presented in this dissertation represents the development of a new class of C-C bond forming transformations useful for constructing synthetic challenging molecules. Development of transfer hydrogenative C-C bond forming reactions in the form of carbonyl additions such as carbonyl allylation, carbonyl propargylation, carbonyl vinylation etc. are discussed in detail. Additionally, these methods avoid the use of stoichiometric chiral allenylmetal, propargylmetal or vinylmetal reagents, respectively, accessing diastereo- and enantioenriched products of carbonyl additions in the absence of stoichiometric organometallic byproducts. By exploiting the atom-economical transfer hydrogenative carbonyl addition protocols using ruthenium and iridium, preparations of important structural motifs that are abundant in natural products, such as allylic alcohols, homoallylic alcohols and homopropargylic alcohols, become more feasible and accessible.

Environmental concerns have birthed an awareness of how we conduct ourselves as citizens of this planet. To reduce environmental impact, we have learned that we must be responsible stewards in all ranges of life: from buying locally grown food to how scientific research and industrial processes are executed. In the realm of chemical research, "green chemistry" has initiated the development of new, sustainable methods that make use of atom economy, step economy, and utilize renewable materials to minimize waste and production of toxic by-products. The formation of carbon-carbon bonds lies at the very heart of organic synthesis, and traditional methods for forming such bonds generally require the use of at least one stoichiometrically preformed organometallic reagent. This corresponds to at least one equivalent of metallic waste byproduct. The in situ formation of alkyl metal nucleophiles for carbonyl additions via hydrogenation of [pi]-unsaturates represents an alternative to use of preformed organometallic reagents. Comprising nearly 90% of the atoms in the universe, hydrogen is vastly abundant and very cheap. The Krische group seeks to contribute new technologies which make use of catalytic hydrogenation and transfer hydrogenation in the reductive coupling of basic chemical feedstocks.

The efficient construction of complex organic molecules mandates that an assortment of methods for forming C-C bonds be available to the practicing synthetic chemist. The addition of carbon based nucleophiles to carbonyl compounds represents a broad class of reactions used to achieve this goal. Traditional methodology requires the use of stoichiometrically preformed organometallic reagents as nucleophiles in this type of reaction. However, due to the moisture sensitivity, excessive preactivation and inevitable generation of stoichiometric waste required for the use of these reagents, alternative methods have become a focus of the synthetic organic community. The research presented in this dissertation describes a new class of C-C bond forming reactions enabled through catalytic transfer hydrogenation. Here, the development and implementation of efficient green methods for carbonyl addition employing [pi]-unsaturates as surrogates to preformed organometallic reagents is described. Additionally, this research describes the first systematic studies toward using alcohols as electrophiles in carbonyl allylation, propargylation and vinylation reactions.

TheprototypicalcatalyticreductiveC-Cbondformations,theFischer-Tropsch reaction [1] and alkene hydroformylation [2], were discovered in 1922 and 1938, respectively [3,4]. These processes, which involve reductive coupling to carbon monoxide, have long been applied to the industrial manufacture of commodity chemicals [5]. Notably, alkene hydroformylation, also known as the oxo-synthesis, has emerged as the largest volume application of homo- neous metal catalysis, accounting for the production of over 7 million metric tons of aldehyde annually. Despite the impact of these prototypical reductive C-C bond formations, this ?eld of research lay fallow for several decades. Eventually, the increased availability of mild terminal reductants, in part- ular silanes, led to a renaissance in the area of catalytic reductive C-C bond formation.Forexample,the'rstcatalyticreductiveC-Ccouplingsbeyond- droformylation, which involve the hydrosilylative dimerization of conjugated dienes [6-12], appeared in 1969 - approximately 16 years after the ?rst - ported metal-catalyzed alkene hydrosilylation [13]. Following these seminal studies, the ?eld of catalytic reductive C-C bond formation underwent exp- sivegrowth,culminatingintheemergenceofanevergrowingbodyofresearch encompassing a powerful set of transformations. To our knowledge, no thematic volumes devoted solely to metal-catalyzed reductive C-C bond formationhave been assembled. For the ?rst time, in this issue of Topics in Current Chemistry,wepresent acompilation ofmonographs from several leaders in this burgeoning area of research. This collection of reviews serves to capture the diversity of catalytic reductive C-C couplings presently available and, in turn, the remarkable range of reactivity embodied by such transformations. There is no indication that this ?eld has reached its zenithanditisthehopeofthepresentauthorthatthisvolumewillfuelfurther progress.

Redox-triggered carbonyl addition via transfer hydrogenation, which enables direct primary alcohol C-H functionalization to form C-C bond, avoids usage of premetalated reagents or discrete alcohol to aldehyde redox reactions. Moreover, step-economy could be greatly improved by site-selective transformations of polyfunctional molecules due to bypassing the need to install and remove protecting groups. However, the redox site-selective transformations still pose a significant challenge in the area of synthetic organic chemistry. Efforts have been focused on the development of iridium catalyzed transfer hydrogenative coupling reactions of primary alcohols with different allyl donors through carbonyl addition in a site-selective manner as well as ruthenium catalyzed regioselective hydrohydroxyalkylation of primary alcohols with a basic feedstock-styrene. Additionally, studies towards the total synthesis of type I polyketide natural product (+)-SCH 351448 in the most concise route is presented.