ABSTRACT
Organocatalysis is the third principal category of catalysis following metal-based catalysis and biocatalysis. Coined by MacMillan in 2000,1 the term organocatalysis brought a collective identity to an emerging eld of catalysis in which bond formations were accomplished using catalytic quantities of small organic molecules. Prior to 2000, there were sporadic reports of organocatalytic transformations (which, of course, could only be classied as being organocatalytic retrospectively) (for examples, see Refs. 2-18); however, following the independent and simultaneous seminal discoveries of iminium catalysis by MacMillan1 and enamine catalysis by Barbas, Lerner, and List19 in 2000, reports of new organocatalytic bond formations increased exponentially. Further demonstrations of the utility of the newly discovered iminium and enamine catalysis manifolds, as well as the discovery of new organocatalytic methods of molecule activation, fuelled a singularly rapid expansion of the eld (for selected books and reviews, see Refs. 20-27).
