New Adventures in Synthesis and Application of Silicon-Stereogenic Silanes

Chuan He received his BS degree in Chemistry from Wuhan University (China) in 2008, after which he studied for a Ph.D. at the same university under the supervision of Prof. Aiwen Lei. In 2013, he joined Prof. Matthew Gaunt’s group as a postdoctoral researcher and Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK). In 2018, he started his independent research career at the Southern University of Science and Technology (China).

His current research interests focus on chiral organosilicon and organoboron chemistry, particularly aiming to develop new synthetic methods to expedite the synthesis of silicon-stereogenic silanes and boron-stereogenic compounds with high efficiency and selectivity, and to explore their applications in asymmetric catalysis, chiral materials, and chiral bio-active molecules.

Since joining SUSTech, he has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers as a corresponding author, including 1 Nat. Chem., 1 Nat. Synth., 1 CCS Chem., 4 J. Am. Chem. Soc., 6 Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 1 Nat. Commun.,1 Chem, and 1 Chem. Soc. Rev. etc. He has also received several highly competitive awards & recognitions. These include Shenzhen Excellent Science and Technology Innovation Distinguished Young Scholar (2023); SUSTech President's Young Research Award (2022) and Young Faculty of the Year Award (2022); Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2021); NSFC Outstanding Young Scholar (2021); Guangdong Province Pearl River Youth Talent (2020); National Specially Appointed Young Expert (2018) and so on.

Compared to the extensive studies of chiral compounds with carbon-stereogenic centers, the synthesis and application of silicon-stereogenic silanes have been much less explored. Due to the inherent properties of the silicon atom, the construction of enantioenriched chiral organosilanes bearing a stereocenter at silicon has always been challenging. During the last five years, our group has developed a series of Catalytic Asymmetric Dehydrogenative Coupling reactions for the synthesis of Si-stereogenic silanes (Si-CADC) with high efficiency.^[1] This general Si-CADC strategy unlocks a facile platform toward diverse Si-stereogenic silanes, challenges the problem for the construction of Si-stereogenic centers with high enantioselectivity, operational simplicity, and efficacy, that could find various applications in many areas.