Publisher's Synopsis
Attention synthetic chemist! Chiral alpha-hydroxy acids available from nature's chiral pool serve as starting materials in a wide variety of enantioselective conversions leading to commercially important products. This monograph, a stimulating source of ideas and an essential reference work for research chemists, focuses on the well-known lactic, mandelic, malic, and tartaric acids. Well-chosen examples show how chiral centers inherent in these simple compounds can be used to control the introduction of further stereogenic centers. Readers can directly apply new transformations in their own work since reaction conditions are given in handy tables.
