title: The advent and development of organocatalysis.
abstract: The use of small organic molecules as catalysts has been known for more than a century. But only in the past decade has organocatalysis become a thriving area of general concepts and widely applicable asymmetric reactions. Here I present my opinion on why the field of organocatalysis has blossomed so dramatically over the past decade.
authors.affiliation: Merck Center for Catalysis at Princeton University, 116 Frick Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA. dmacmill@princeton.edu
authors.forename: David W C
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: MacMillan
mesh_terms: D002384:Catalysis; D002625:Chemistry, Organic / Q000266:history* / Q000379:methods*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D007477:Ions / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D007477:Ions