The advent and development of organocatalysis

MacMillan, David W. C.

David W. C. MacMillan is at the Merck Center for Catalysis at Princeton University, 116 Frick Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA.

doi:10.1038/nature07367

Author Information Reprints and permissions information is available at http://www.nature.com/reprints. The author declares no competing financial interests. Correspondence should be addressed to the author ([email protected]).

Nature 455(7211):p 304-308, September 18, 2008. | DOI: 10.1038/nature07367

The use of small organic molecules as catalysts has been known for more than a century. But only in the past decade has organocatalysis become a thriving area of general concepts and widely applicable asymmetric reactions. Here I present my opinion on why the field of organocatalysis has blossomed so dramatically over the past decade.