Speaker: Prof. A. T. Biju  

Associate Professor, Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Title: Sustainable N-Heterocyclic Carbene (NHC) Organocatalysis

Abstract: N-Heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-catalyzed umpolung of aldehydes is widely used for the unconventional access to target molecules by reversing the inherent polarity of aldehydes.¹ We have recently used this aldehyde umpolung strategy for the NHC-catalyzed atroposelective synthesis of N-aryl succinimides having an axially chiral C-N bond via the desymmetrization of N-aryl maleimides (Scheme below).² Moreover, we have demonstrated the NHC-catalyzed umpolung of Michael acceptors for the activated olefin–isatin cross-coupling.³ In addition, NHCs can be utilized to reverse the polarity of aldimines and this concept has been employed for the synthesis of indoles, quinolines and dihydroquinoxalines.⁴ The details of these works will be discussed.

Speaker's Bio: A. T. Biju received his M. Sc. from Sacred Heart College Thevara (affiliated to MG University, Kerala, India) and Ph.D. under the guidance of Dr. Vijay Nair at the CSIR-NIIST (Formerly RRL), Trivandrum, India. Subsequently, he has been a post-doctoral fellow with Prof. Tien-Yau Luh at the National Taiwan University, Taipei and an Alexander von Humboldt fellow with Prof. Frank Glorius at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany. In June 2011, he began his independent research career at the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. From June 2017 onwards, he has been an Associate Professor at the Department of Organic Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His research focuses on the development of transition-metal-free carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bond-forming reactions using aryne chemistry and N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) organocatalysis, and their application in organic synthesis. He is also Editor, at J. Heterocyclic Chem., a member in Advisory Board, Org. Chem. Front., International Advisory Board, Asian J. Org. Chem. And in Editorial Board, Green Synth. Catal.