Karl Anker Jørgensen has over the years contributed to the development and understanding of novel reaction concepts asymmetric catalysis. During the 1990’ties his focus was on the application of mainly chiral Lewis acid complexes as catalysts for a variety of classical organic reactions such 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions and hetero-Diels-Alder reactions.
In the early 2000’ties Karl Anker Jørgensen changes research field to organocatalysis, with the focus applying small organic molecules to catalyze organic reactions. In this field he has been one of the main drivers in the development of a number of, not only new reactions, but also reaction concepts for the synthesis of complex molecular architectures. These developments are based on a very fruitful integration of advanced physical chemistry and computational investigations in reaction design.
These developments by his research group have found great impact, not only in academia, but also in the life-science industry for the formation of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The industrial application of the efficient organocatalysts developed is the use in large-scale (up to tons scale) synthesis of APIs, which more recently have been shown to be of importance for the formation of APIs under more sustainable conditions.