# Enantioselective Reactions with Amide Electrophiles Utilizing Transition-Metal Catalysis

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2023 · $42,348

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Organic synthesis plays a crucial role in the development of small molecule therapeutics. New
methodologies that allow for the introduction of defined stereocenters and difficult-to-access motifs,
such as quarternary stereocenters, are particularly desirable. Moreover, there is growing interest in the
use of unconventional synthetic building blocks to generate such complexity, as the use of uncommon
starting materials provides new strategies and retrosynthetic disconnections that may prove broadly
useful.
 The proposed research involves the use of amides in transition metal-catalyzed reactions to
generate enantioenriched products bearing quaternary stereocenters. Although amides have
historically been avoided as synthetic building blocks, they have recently been employed in transition
metal-catalyzed reactions that proceed via C–N bond activation. However, amide cross-coupling
methods that make quaternary stereocenters are rare and no catalytic enantioselective examples have
been reported. The success of the proposed studies would push the limits of known amide cross-
coupling methodology, provide methods to access defined quaternary stereocenters, and offer new
strategies for synthetic chemists to utilize in the construction of drugs and complex molecules.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10607332
- **Project number:** 1F31GM149161-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Arismel Tena-Meza
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $42,348
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-04-01 → 2026-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10607332

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10607332, Enantioselective Reactions with Amide Electrophiles Utilizing Transition-Metal Catalysis (1F31GM149161-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10607332. Licensed CC0.

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