Dedicated to Professor Barry M. Trost on the occasion of his 70th birthday.Trisubstituted allylic alcohols [1,2] are ubiquitous in natural products and are readily converted into diverse chiral building blocks by enantioselective epoxidation, [2a,b] cyclopropanation, [2a,c] hydrogenation, [2a,d] and allylic substitution. [2a,e] Among methods for the regio-and stereoselective synthesis of trisubstituted primary allylic alcohols, alkyne hydrometalation or carbometalation mediated by stoichiometric organometallic reagents has found broad use. [3][4][5][6][7] For example, in seminal studies by Corey et al. (1967), [4c] the regio-and stereoselective hydroalumination of propargyl alcohols was used to construct vinyl iodides, which were converted into trisubstituted allylic alcohols upon exposure to lithium dialkyl cuprates. Similarly, alkyne hydromagnesiation and carbomagnesiation with Grignard reagents delivered trisubstituted allylic alcohols regio-and stereoselectively. [6,7] Although alkyne functionalization through hydrometalation and carbometalation remains at the forefront of research, [3][4][5][6][7] the development of equivalent transformations that avoid stoichiometric metal reagents is clearly desirable. Conversely, whereas related nickel-catalyzed alkyne-carbonyl reductive couplings can be highly regioselective, such processes require terminal reductants that are metallic, pyrophoric, or highly mass intensive (e.g. ZnR 2 , BEt 3 , HSiR 3 ; Scheme 1), [8][9][10] although nickel-catalyzed alcoholmediated alkyne-enone couplings were recently disclosed. [11] Hence, the discovery of alkyne-carbonyl (or alkyneimine) reductive couplings under hydrogenation conditions is significant. [12,13] More recently, an alkyne-carbonyl reductive coupling by ruthenium-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation was developed; however, regioselectivity in such processes remains largely unexplored. [14,15] Herein, we report the regio-and stereoselective synthesis of trisubstituted primary allylic alcohols from alkynes in the absence of stoichiometric metallic reagents. In this reaction, paraformaldehyde is used as a C 1 feedstock and, more remarkably, as a reductant under conditions of transfer hydrogenation with nickel and ruthenium catalysts, which exhibit complementary regioselectivity (Scheme 2).In response to the lack of efficient methods for diene hydroformylation, [16] we recently developed a process for diene hydrohydroxymethylation under the conditions of ruthenium-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation using paraformaldehyde as a C1 feedstock; [17] paraformaldehyde was itself prepared from synthesis gas (via methanol). As the development of efficient catalysts for alkyne hydroformylation remains an unmet challenge, [18] we undertook the current investigation into alkyne-paraformaldehyde reductive coupling. Initial studies focused on the reductive coupling of 1-phenylpropyne (1 a) with paraformaldehyde. We explored the nickel-catalyzed reductive coupling of 1 a with paraformaldehyde in the absence of a reducing agent. [8][9][10] Re...