Elz ˙bieta Wojaczyn ´ska (ne ´e Ostrycharz) was born in Z ˙migród, Poland. She received her M.Sc. degree in organic chemistry from Wrocław University of Technology in 1997. Her doctoral thesis on the enantioselective synthesis and application of chiral sulfoxides was completed under the supervision of Professor Jacek Skarz ˙ewski in 2001. Her research at the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Wrocław University of Technology focuses on the synthesis of new chiral building blocks and of novel chiral ligands for the asymmetric synthesis. Jacek Wojaczyn ´ski was born in Wrocław in 1969. He graduated from the University of Wrocław in inorganic chemistry in 1993. He received his Ph.D. in 1998 for work on the influence of asymmetric modification of the porphyrin periphery on the properties of formed complexes. He is a member of the Porphyrin Chemistry Research Group led by Professor Lechosław Latos-Graz ˙yn ´ski at the Department of Chemistry, University of Wrocław. His current scientific interests include degradation of tetrapyrrolic macrocycles and investigation of paramagnetic hemoproteins using NMR spectroscopy.

Chiral sulfinyl compounds, sulfoxides, sulfoximines, sulfinamides, and other derivatives, play an important role in asymmetric synthesis as versatile auxiliaries, ligands, and catalysts. They are also recognized as pharmacophores found in already marketed and well-sold drugs (e.g., esomeprazole) and used in drug design. This review is devoted to the modern methods of preparation of sulfinyl derivatives in enantiopure or enantiomerically enriched form. Selected new approaches leading to racemic products for which the asymmetric variant can be developed in the future are mentioned as well.

A member of the propellane family – a novel chiral compound DDDDP – that shows second harmonic generation in its crystalline form.