The bright future of stereoselective synthesis of co-ordination compounds

Transfer of chirality during the build-up of molecules has been applied inn umerable times in organic chemistry since the end of the 19th century, when it was introduced in the so-called asymmetric synthesis by E. Fischer. Alt hough analogous reactions were introduced in co-ordination chemistry in its early development, diastereoselective reactions have not been applied in a very systematic way for co-ordination species. The highly versatile co-ord ination geometry of metal centres makes the synthesis of a selected stereoi somer in general a formidable task. In the present article an account on ne w developments in the field is given, focussing on recently synthesized mol ecules, where natural chiral products are used to create a large number of chiral ligands which predetermine the chirality at metal centres.