A chiral, ammonium ylide based access to tetrasubstituted 2,3‐dihydrofurans starting from readily available benzylidene dicarbonyls and bromo acetophenones has been developed. The products are obtained in moderate to good yields with excellent diasteroselectivity and good to excellent enantioselectivity (up to 99:1 e.r.). The employed chiral amine can be recovered in near quantitative yield. The transformation can be run as a three‐component one‐pot reaction, generating the ammonium salt and ylide in situ. The scope of this reaction includes 17 new dihydrofurans with aromatic or heteroaromatic substituents.

Three chiral tridentate N^N^S coordinating pyridine‐carbaldehyde (S)‐N4‐(α‐methylbenzyl)thiosemicarbazones (HTSCmB) were synthesised along with lysine‐modified derivatives. One of them was selected and covalently conjugated to the cell‐penetrating peptide sC18 by solid‐phase peptide synthesis. The HTSCmB model ligands, the HTSCLp derivatives and the peptide conjugate rapidly and quantitatively form very stable PtII chlorido complexes [Pt(TSC)Cl] when treated with K2PtCl4 in solution. The Pt(CN) derivatives were obtained from one TSCmB model complex and the peptide conjugate complex through Cl−→CN− exchange. Ligands and complexes were characterised by NMR, IR spectroscopy, HR‐ESI‐MS and single‐crystal XRD. Intriguingly, no decrease in cell viability was observed when testing the biological activity of the lysine‐tagged HdpyTSCLp, its sC18 conjugate HdpyTSCL‐sC18 or the PtCl and Pt(CN) conjugate complexes in three different cell lines. Thus, given the facile and effective preparation of such Pt‐TSC‐peptide conjugates, these systems might pave the way for future use in late‐stage labelling with Pt radionuclides and application in nuclear medicine.

The Ir‐catalyzed conversion of prochiral tert‐cyclobutanols to β‐methyl‐substituted ketones proceeds under comparably mild conditions in toluene (45–110 °C) and is particularly suited for the enantioselective desymmetrization of β‐oxy‐substituted substrates to give products with a quaternary chirality center with up to 95 % ee using DTBM‐SegPhos as a chiral ligand. Deuteration experiments and kinetic isotope effect measurements revealed major mechanistic differences to related RhI‐catalyzed transformations. Supported by DFT calculations we propose the initial formation of an IrIII hydride intermediate, which then undergoes a β‐C elimination (C−C bond activation) prior to reductive C−H elimination. The computational model also allows the prediction of the stereochemical outcome. The Ir‐catalyzed cyclobutanol cleavage is broadly applicable but fails for substrates bearing strongly coordinating groups. The method is of particular value for the stereo‐controlled synthesis of substituted chromanes related to the tocopherols and other natural products.

We investigated the previously unknown enantioselective Nicatalyzed hydrocyanation of 1,3-diarylpropenes (homostilbenes). For this purpose, a series of (E)-homostilbenes were prepared by (microwave-assisted) Pd-catalyzed coupling of allylic alcohols with aryl-boronic acids. Employing our established catalyst system formed from Ni(cod) 2 and a TADDOLderived chiral phosphine-phosphite ligand and using TMSCN as an in situ source of HCN, the hydrocyanation of various homostilbenes was studied. The synthetic usefulness of the methodology was demonstrated in a short synthesis of the new (allo-) colchicine analogue 7-cyano-11-methoxy-colchinol involving an PIDA-mediated oxidative cyclization of the corresponding hydrocyanation product to set up the 7-membered ring. The absolute configuration of 2,4-diphenylbutyronitrile was assigned by comparison of experimental and calculated ECD spectra.