ABSTRACT
Acknowledgment................................................................................................................. 47
References ........................................................................................................................... 47
Driven by the increased demand for chiral drugs in enantiomerically pure form, following
the release of Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) marketing guidelines, the search for
novel catalytic methods to access enantiopure compounds is a major topic in contemporary
organic synthesis [1-3]. In this context, biocatalysis has been applied in preparative organic
chemistry at an increasing pace over the last two decades [4-7]. From the two principles of
biocatalytic reactions where chiral substrates are involved-(i) desymmetrization of meso-
and prochiral compounds [8,9]; and (ii) kinetic resolution of racemates [10-13]—the latter is
remarkably dominant in number of applications (~1:4) [14]. This is because (out
of combinatorial considerations) there are more racemic molecules possible than meso-
and prochiral compounds, which bear an element of symmetry within the molecule.
Consequently, racemates always have been (and will be) an indispensable starting point
28 Biocatalysis in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industries
for the synthes is of chiral material s in nonracemi c form . In princi ple, kinetic resol ution of
