The state of the art in asymmetric induction: the aldol reaction as a case study

This review highlights the achievements in asymmetric induction in the context of the aldol reaction during the years 2003–2007. While chiral auxiliary-mediated methods are the best understood and developed, catalytic methods based on chiral metal–ligand complexes and more recently organocatalysts promise to improve the efficacy and economics of asymmetric induction. This review provides a brief summary of work prior to 2003 on chiral auxiliaries, metal catalysts and organocatalysts, and then delineates the state of the art in each process. It appears that no one method of achieving asymmetric induction in the aldol reaction is universally superior.

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