“…Over the past few decades, the conjugate addition reactions of organoboron compounds to α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds have been successfully achieved, using transition metal catalysts, such as rhodium, palladium, copper, nickel, and so on, which offer a broad substrate scope and functional group tolerance . α,β-Unsaturated 2-acyl imidazoles represent an important class of substrates for asymmetric reactions, and the 2-acylimidazolyl moiety can be transformed into various carboxylic functional groups . In 2012, Ohmiya and Sawamura reported the first enantioselective conjugate addition of alkylboranes (alkyl-9-BBN) to imidazole-2-yl α,β-unsaturated ketones catalyzed by a copper- N -heterocyclic carbene complex (Scheme a) .…”