Dear Colleagues,

Asymmetric synthesis is the most efficient way to obtain chiral compounds. Over the past few decades, the development of efficient asymmetric methods, especially asymmetric catalysis, has become the frontier of synthetic chemistry and has received extensive attention from both academia and industry. Catalytic asymmetric synthesis is considered to be the most ideal and appealing strategy for the synthesis of optically active compounds because of its significant atom and step economy and environmental benign advantages over stoichiometric asymmetric synthesis. Among them, chiral catalysts are the key to achieve high reaction efficiency and enantioselectivity, and chiral ligands play a decisive role in asymmetric transformations catalyzed by transition metals. Although chemists have developed many kinds of chiral ligands, only a few of them with “privileged structures” have shown excellent catalytic performance and enantioselective induction in various asymmetric reactions, there is no universal chiral ligand, and different reactions, even different substrates may need their own suitable ligands. Therefore, chiral ligand/catalyst design has become a subject of central importance within asymmetric catalysis. At the same time, the development of efficient catalytic asymmetric reactions using various chiral ligands/catalysts remains one of the most challenging and long-term topic for chemists.

The aim of this Special Issue is to present a collection of papers that describe recent advances and findings in the field of chiral ligand/catalyst design and development, their applications in asymmetric catalytic reactions, and related mechanistic studies. We invite original research articles, reviews, as well as commentaries covering these topics. I look forward to your contribution.

Prof. Dr. Ming-Hua Xu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• asymmetric synthesis
• asymmetric catalysis
• asymmetric catalytic reactions
• chiral ligands; ligand design
• transition-metal catalysis
• organometallic chemistry
• organocatalysts
• enantioselectivity
• enantiocontrol
• stereoselectivity