Novel Cinchona derived organocatalysts: new asymmetric transformations and catalysis

Cinchona alkaloids have a long history as being a powerful medicine against malaria. Since a relative short period (about 50 years) chemist have also used these alkaloids as chiral catalyst for a wide variety of asymmetric transformations. Especially since the beginning of this century, when strong hydrogen bond donors were introduced improving the catalyst activity and selectivity. The research described in this thesis focuses on the use of Cinchona alkaloids as non-covalent bifunctional organocatalysts. Two subjects will be addressed: the development of new asymmetric conjugate additions yielding products that can be used in peptide chemistry and the second part is focused on the synthesis of novel analogues of Cinchona alkaloids. The second part is directed towards obtaining more insight in the mechanism of Cinchona alkaloids catalyzed reactions.