Date : 2011. 10. 7, 11:00 AM Place : Rm.404, Bldg.503 -Abstract- Over the past half century there has been much interest in developing organic receptors and metal complexes that interact with amino acids stereoselectively. In life, pyridoxal phosphate and pyridoxamine phosphate play important roles as coenzymes for making natural amino acids. Inspired by nature, we have developed a unified approach to making unnatural amino acids and chiral diamines by using chiral models of pyridoxal and pyridoxamine. In addition to the unified route to the synthesis of the two types of chiral compounds, chiral diamine based catalysts are useful for making unnatural amino acids. Thus a versatile method for making a wide variety of chiral diamines is also useful for making unnatural amino acids.