Palladium/Chiral Amine Co‐catalyzed Enantioselective β‐Arylation of α,β‐Unsaturated Aldehydes

Palladium and a simple chiral amine are used as co-catalysts for the enantioselective conjugate addition of aryl boronic acids to α,β-unsaturated aldehydes (see scheme). The synthetic utility of this co-catalyzed reaction was demonstrated in the short total syntheses of (R)-(−)-curcumene and 4-aryl-2-ones.