Helvetica Chimica Acta, cilt.98, sa.2, ss.260-266, 2015 (SCI-Expanded)
Starting from (S)-serine, a new method was developed for the synthesis of the β-amino acid part of sitagliptin in ten steps and with an overall yield of 30%. The crucial step of the synthesis was the ring opening of N- and O-protected (R)-aziridin-2-methanol with (2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)magnesium bromide to give N- and O-protected (R)-2-amino-3-(2,4,5-trifluorophenyl)propan-1-ol.