Lipases - Enzymes for Biocatalytic Asymmetric Synthesis

An efficient, very simple and eco-friendly procedure has been developed for the synthesis of highly enantioenriched (alpha)-amino aldehydes by IBX-mediated oxidation of the corresponding (beta)-amino alcohols. The procedure has been applied to a wide range of substrates with different side chains and protecting groups showing that the final aldehydes can be obtained in very high yields and with no racemization at the stereogenic center present in the starting compounds.