Even though there are dozens of biologically active 2-substituted and 2,6-disubstituted piperidines,o nly al imited number of approaches exist for their synthesis.H erein is described two Mannich-type additions to nitrones,one using bketoacids under catalyst-free conditions and another using methyl ketones in the presence of chiral thioureas,w hichc an generate abroad arrayofs uch 2-substituted materials,a swell as other ring variants,i nt he form of b-N-hydroxy-aminoketones.B oth processes have broad scope,w ith the latter providing products with high enantioselectivity (up to 98 %). The combination of these methods,a long with other critical steps,has enabled 8-step total syntheses of the 2,6-disubstituted piperidine alkaloids (À)-lobeline and (À)-sedinone. Scheme 1. Selected piperidine-containing natural products, precedent for enantioselective functionalizations to generate such heterocycles, and two unique approaches based on using nitrones.