“…) We next turned our attention towards the synthesis of enantiomerically pure isotopomers of 2-phenylpropionic acids (R)-1, (R)-[ For these isotopomers, we chose to use Evans' well known and predictable alkylation methodology [32][33][34] as the corresponding racemic acids were not commercially available. For this particular strategy, we were required to synthesize the phenylacetylated oxazolidinone (R,S)-5, 19,20,35,36 which was achieved efficiently in 86% yield through simple deprotonation of the parent oxazolidinone (R,S)-2 (using n-BuLi in THF at À788C), followed by the slow addition of phenylacetyl chloride in THF (Scheme 2). With this substrate in-hand, we next focused our attention on its diastereoselective methylation using Evans' well known deprotonation-alkylation [32][33][34] 21 was shown to be configurationally stable under the resolution conditions (Scheme 4).…”