Recent advances in the discovery of organometallic catalysts using high-throughput screening assays

Combinatorial techniques were developed initially to accelerate the identification of molecules with biological activity. The successes of these techniques inspired the design of high-throughput methods to assist in the discovery of new catalysts. Over the past year, many groups in academia and industry have utilized high-throughput screening assays to reduce the time required to identify catalysts for asymmetric processes, cross-coupling reactions and other metal-catalyzed transformations. The continued success of combinatorial techniques in organometallic chemistry should propagate the development of new and improved methods to facilitate catalyst discovery.