Professor Daisuke Uraguchi

Professor Daisuke Uraguchi
Date
Wed October 29th 2014, 4:15pm
Location
Braun Lecture Hall
S.G. Mudd Building
Stanford University

"Molecular design and applications of chiral organic ion pair catalysts featuring anion-controlling ability"

About the Seminar

Controlling anionic species by counterions is a simple yet difficult strategy in synthetic chemistry due to the ambiguous distance and angle between anions and cations.  We have found that anionic intermediates can be precisely controlled by chiral organic cations through cooperative exploitation of electrostatic and hydrogen-bonding interactions to form a “structured ion pair”.  Based on this concept, a series of highly chemo- and stereoselective transformations were developed under the unique catalyses of P-spiro aminophosphonium salts and ammonium betaines, and the story on this endeavor will be presented.

About the Speaker

Daisuke Uraguchi (born in 1974) received his PhD from Hokkaido University under the direction of Prof. Keiji Maruoka (2002).  During his PhD study, he also worked with Prof. Gregory C. Fu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for three months as a visiting scientist (2000).  After a JSPS postdoctoral period (2002-04) with Prof. P. Andrew Evans at Indiana University and with Prof. Masahiro Terada at Tohoku University, he joined the Sagami Chemical Research Center (2004-06).  He was appointed as an Assistant Professor of the research group of Prof. Takashi Ooi at Nagoya University in 2006, and promoted to Associate Professor in 2008.  His current research interests are mainly focused on the chemistry of organic ion-pair catalysis.  He received Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (2008), the Chemical Society of Japan Award for Young Chemists (2010), the Young Scientists' Award, a Commendation for Science and Technology from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (2011), the Banyu Chemist Award (2012), Lectureship Award MBLA (2013), and Thieme Chemistry Journal Award (2014).