Technical application of biological principles in asymmetric catalysis.

The production of enantiopure compounds is becoming increasingly important to the chemical and biotechnological industries. Bioorganic transformations look set to meet this demand due to their inherently regio- and stereoselective natures. In this sense, biosynthesis needs to be viewed as "chemistry by nature". Biological principles that have been optimized over thousands of years experience a new renaissance when used for technical asymmetric catalysis; however, to be able to use them, we need an appropriate technology: reaction engineering. Indeed, various biological principles are already being applied in technical asymmetric synthesis without the scientific community at large being aware of this.