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Chiral β-azido- and β-cyanocarbonyl compounds are extremely useful building blocks in asymmetric synthesis, thanks to the manyfold reactivity of their functional groups. The enantioselective synthesis of such compounds, until the beginning of the 21st century, has been mostly achieved using transition-metal chiral catalysts. The explosion of enantioselective organocatalysis, however, has enabled the development of efficient metal-free methodologies with significant benefits in terms of costs and environmental safety. An overview of the advances made in recent years in this field is herein presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the great advantages of peptidomimetic scaffolds, there are only a few examples of their application in the field of asymmetric catalysis. Peptidomimetic scaffolds offer numerous advantages related to their easy preparation, modular and tunable structures, and biomimetic features, which make them well suited as chiral catalysts. This review underlines the structure–function relationship for catalytic properties towards efficient enantioselective catalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical summary on the discovery of the nineteen members of the phakellistatin family (phakellistatin 1-19), cytotoxic proline-rich cyclopeptides of marine origin, is reported. Isolation, structural elucidation, and biological properties of the various-sized natural macrocycles are described, along with the total syntheses and the enigmatic issues of the cytotoxic activity reproducibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The review by Alemán et al. [[4]] summarizes the achievements of the last few years in the -functionalization of imine building blocks, both racemic and stereoselective, by means of visible-light photoredox catalysis. The photocatalytic addition reactions of radicals to imines and reactions involving -aminoradicals, generated by the single-electron reduction of imines, are covered in different sections. As outlined in the introduction, imines are versatile substrates under photoredox catalysis conditions, which can serve either as nucleophiles or electrophiles. [Extracted from the article]