ZHAO Yu
Professor, Assistant Dean (Graduate Studies)
Postdoc., MIT, 2008-2011; Ph.D., Boston college, 2008; B.S., Peking University, 2002.
Contact Information:
Office: S9-13-01E
Tel: (65)-6516-7964
Fax: (65)-6779-1691
Email: zhaoyu@nus.edu.sg
Research
Recognition and Achievements
- Asian Rising Stars Lectureship Award, 18th Asian Chemical Congress, 2019
- Tokyo Chemical Industry-SNIC Industry Award in Synthetic Chemistry, 2018
- Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, 2016
- Faculty Young Scientist Award, NUS, 2015
Research Interests
Research interests of our lab lie in the discovery and development of efficient, selective as well as economical catalytic methods for chemical synthesis, with an emphasis on asymmetric catalysis. Application of the new methods toward the synthesis of molecules with a complex structure and/or useful functions will serve as a testament of the efficacy of the method development. Ultimately, the goal is to provide new chemical tools to bear on contemporary problems in the applied areas such as pharmaceuticals, chemical biology and material science.
Research Highlight
We have established a one-step synthesis of valuable enantioenriched six-membered N-heterocycles from readily available racemic 1,5-diols. Key to the success is the development of new iridacycle catalysts that enable an efficient redox-neutral construction of two C-N bonds between diols and amines in an enantioconvergent fashion. Mechanistic studies identified an intriguing preferential oxidation of secondary vs. primary alcohol in the diol substrate by the iridacycle catalyst, which set a challenging intermolecular amination of aryl-alkyl substituted alcohol as the enantiodetermining step for this catalytic N-heterocycle synthesis. (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 10.1021/jacs.4c12466).
Teaching Contributions AY2024/2025
- CM3221 Organic Synthesis: The Disconnection Approach
- CM5225 Asymmetric Catalysis
Representative Publications
- Liu, Y. et al. Dynamic Asymmetric Diamination of Allylic Alcohols through Borrowing Hydrogen Catalysis: Diastereo-divergent Synthesis of Tetrahydrobenzodiazepines. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024, 63, e202410351.
- Pan, J. et al. Enantioselective Construction of Eight-Membered N-Heterocycles from Simple 1,3-Dienes via Pd(0) Lewis Base Catalysis. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2024, 63, e202317703.
- Gao, Y. et al. Enantioconvergent transformations of secondary alcohols through borrowing hydrogen catalysis. Chem. Soc. Rev. 2023, 52, 5541.
- Ng, X. et al. Direct Access to Chiral Aliphatic Amines by Catalytic Enantioconvergent Redox-Neutral Amination of Alcohols. Nat. Synth. 2023, 2, 572.
- Liu, Y. et al. Iridium-Catalyzed Enantioconvergent Borrowing Hydrogen Annulation of Racemic 1,4-Diols with Amines. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023, 145, 5007.
- Gao, Y. et al. Atroposelective Synthesis of 1,1’-Bipyrroles Bearing a Chiral N-N Axis: Chiral Phosphoric Acid Catalysis with Lewis Acid Induced Enantiodivergence. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202200371.
- Liu, Y. et al. Redox-Enabled Direct Stereoconvergent Heteroarylation of Simple Alcohols. Nat. Commun. 2021, 12, 5035.
- Yang, B. et al. Desymmetrization of 1,3-Diones by Catalytic Enantioselective Condensation with Hydrazine. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 4179.
- Yang, L.-C. et al. Stereoselective access to [5.5.0] and [4.4.1] bicyclic compounds through Pd-catalysed divergent higher-order cycloadditions. Nat. Chem. 2020, 12, 860.
- Lu, S. et al. Diastereo- and Atroposelective Synthesis of Bridged Biaryls Bearing an Eight-Membered Lactone through an Organocatalytic Cascade. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 17062.
