Bio- and medicinally compatible α-amino acid modification via merging photo-redox and N-heterocyclic carbene catalysis

An NHC and photo-redox co-catalyzed α-amino acid decarboxylative carbonylation reaction was presented here. This method displayed good scope generality, providing an easy and direct pathway to access various downstream α-amino ketones from readily accessible starting materials under bio- and medicinally compatible conditions. Moreover, this strategy is appealing to chemical biology since it has great potential for chemical modification of peptides or late-stage synthesis of keto-peptides.