Modified BINOL Ligands in Asymmetric Catalysis^†

Yu Chen was born in Dafeng, Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China, in November 1973. He received his B.Sc. degree in 1996 and his M.Sc. degree in 1999 from Nankai University. In 1999, he joined the research group of Professor Andrei K. Yudin at the University of Toronto, where he is currently in his fourth year of the Ph.D. program. His main research interests are in the areas of asymmetric synthesis and catalysis.

Shahla Yekta was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1977. She received her B.Sc. degree in chemistry at the University of Toronto in 1999, where she worked under the supervision of Professor Mark Lautens for two summers. She joined the group of Professor Andrei K. Yudin for her final year research project and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in the Yudin group in the area of catalytic applications of fluorine-containing binaphthyls.

Andrei K. Yudin received his bachelor's degree (Honors) in 1992 from Moscow State University. He then entered the graduate program in chemistry at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where he worked in the laboratories of Professors G. K. S. Prakash and George A. Olah. In 1996, he received his Ph.D. degree, working on applications of selective introduction of fluorine into organic molecules. Shortly thereafter, he joined the research group of Professor K. Barry Sharpless at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, where he carried out research in transition metal catalysis. In 1998, he accepted an Assistant Professor position at the Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, and became Associate Professor in 2002. Dr. Yudin is the recipient of a Research Innovation Award (Research Corporation), Premier's Research Excellence Award, and Cottrell Scholar Award. His research interests are in design and development of new chemo- and stereoselective transformations, with particular emphasis on nitrogen-transfer methodologies, selective fluorine transfer, asymmetric synthesis, and electrosynthesis.