Interplay of direct stereocontrol and dynamic kinetic resolution in a bifunctional amine thiourea catalyzed highly enantioselective cascade michael-michael reaction

Control is better: A novel chiral amine thiourea catalyzed, highly enantioselective Michael-Michael cascade process serves as a "one-pot" approach to synthetically and biologically significant chiral tetrahydrothiophenes (see scheme). Notably, an unprecedented cooperative direct stereocontrol and dynamic kinetic resolution by the bifunctional catalyst is identified that governs the highly enantioselective cascade process.