The construction of quaternary stereocenters with 95–99% ee at ambient temperatures can be achieved by a copper-catalyzed Michael reaction with the application of α-amino acid amides as chiral auxiliaries [Eq. (1)]. These amides can be obtained in a few steps from the α-amino acids with standard transformations and, after the Michael reaction, they can be quantitatively recovered. Exclusion of water and oxygen is not necessary.
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Christoffers et al. (2000) studied this question.