Chiral ligands designed in China

Asymmetric catalysis has become an indispensable and productive field within the Chinese organic chemistry society. The design of chiral ligands is one of the most prominent research areas in this field. Since the late 1990s, Chinese organic chemists have developed numerous chiral ligands possessing novel chiral skeletons and design concepts. Some of these ligands have been widely adopted and can be regarded as 'privileged ligand', which have shown excellent performance in many asymmetric catalytic reactions. In this review, we provide an overview of the chiral ligands designed by Chinese scientists with the aim of promoting the development of this area in China and with the hope of encouraging more scientists across the world to use these ligands when designing asymmetric reactions.