Shibasaki Group – Professor Product Portal

Professor Masakatsu Shibasaki

Professor Shibasaki's research focuses on the development of novel cooperative asymmetric catalytic systems that allowed for streamlined synthesis of enantioenriched high-value chiral building blocks. The power of cooperativity, e.g. simultaneous activation of nucleophiles and electrophiles by designed multiple catalytic functions, engages low-reactive substrates in the reaction of interest without the aid of stoichiometric reagents. Rare earth metal catalysis developed in our research group is robust and powerful to operate routine asymmetric syntnthesis with a wide range of reaction portfolio, thanks to these metals' ligand-tuned Lewis acidity, high coordination number, variable coordination mode. One note: the word 'rare' in rare earth metals is reminiscent that they are rare elements. But, most of them are abundant in Earth's crust and waiting for being used by scientists to contribute to our society.

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