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45772-SE
Organocatalysis, at the ACS National Meeting, September 2006, San Francisco, CA

Tomislav Rovis, Colorado State University

The PRF SE grant funds were used as partial support for a symposium on Asymmetric Organocatalysis held in conjunction with the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco in Fall 2006. The symposium showcased the work of several people in the field of Organocatalysis including Li Deng (Brandeis), David MacMillan (Princeton), Matthew Gaunt (Cambridge), Carlos Barbas (Scripps), Tomislav Rovis (Colorado State), Keiji Maruoka (Kyoto) and Jeffrey Johnston (Vanderbilt). PRF support enabled us to ease the travel burden of Gaunt and Maruoka who arrived in San Francisco from overseas.

The symposium was very well attended throughout the session. Topics covered included Cinchona alkaloid catalysis, asymmetric amine and imminium catalysis including the introduction of SOMO catalysis, nucleophilic carbene catalysis, asymmetric hydrogen bond and phase transfer catalysis. The size of the venue and crowd (the room held ~1000 people) unfortunately did not allow much latitude for questioning but we nevertheless fielded a few for each talk. The meeting led to free exchange of ideas and dissemination of results. The organizers received very positive feedback from the attendees and speakers, and, by all accounts, the symposium was deemed a resounding success.

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