alkenes with at least one disubstituted vinylic carbon are much more reactive than mono or 1,2-disubstituted ones. Mechanism As seen in Figure 11, Lewis acid-catalyzed ene reactions can proceed either through a concerted mechanism that has a polar transition state, or through a stepwise mechanism with a zwitterionic intermediate. The ene, enophile and choice of catalyst can all influence which pathway is the lower energy process. In general, the more reactive the ene or enophile-Lewis acid complex is, the more likely the reaction is to be stepwise. Chiral Lewis acids for the asymmetric catalysis of carbonyl-ene reactions Chiral dialkoxytitanium complexes and the synthesis of laulimalide A current direction in the study of Lewis acid-catalyzed ene reactions is the development of asymmetric catalysts for C–C bond formation. Mikami has reported the use of a chiral titanium complex (Figure 12) in asymmetric ene reactions involving prochiral glyoxylat esters. The catalyst is prepared in situ from (i-PrO)2TiX2 and optically pure binaphthol, the alkoxy-ligand exchange being facilitated by the use of molecular sieves. The method affords α-hydroxy esters of high enantiomeric purities, compounds that represent a class of biological and synthetic importance (Figure 12). Since both (R)- and (S)-BINOL are commercially available in optically pure form, this asymmetric process allows the synthesis of both enantiomers of α-hydroxy esters and their derivatives. However, this method is only applicable to 1,1-disubstituted olefins, due to the modest Lewis acidity of the titanium-BINOL complex. As shown in Figure 13, Corey and co-workers propose an early transition state for this reaction, with the goal of explaining the high enantioselectivity observed (assuming that the reaction is exothermic as calculated from standard bond energies). Even if the structure of the active catalyst is not known, Corey’s model proposes the following: the aldehyde is activated by complexation with the chiral catalyst (R)-BINOL-TiX2 by the formyl lone electron pair syn to the formyl hydrogen to form a pentacoordinate Ti structure. CH—O hydrogen bonding occurs to the stereoelectronically most favorable oxygen lone pair of the BINOL ligand. In such a structure, the top (re) face of the formyl group is much more accessible to a nucleophile attack, as the bottom (si) face is shielded by the neighboring naphthol moiety, thus affording the observed configuration of the product. The formal total synthesis of laulimalide (Figure 14) illustrates the robustness of the reaction developed by Mikami. Laulimalide is a marine natural product, a metabolite of various