Die wichtigsten und nützlichsten Methoden der modernen stereoselektiven Synthese sind in diesem Band zusammengefasst. Viele anschauliche Beispiele für die Darstellung von Wirkstoffen und Naturstoffen regen zur gezielten Abwandlung und Integration in eigene Synthesewege an. Dabei geht es den Autoren weniger darum, das Gebiet in seiner Gesamtheit darzustellen; vielmehr versuchen sie, die wirklich grundlegenden Ansätze auszuwählen, die jeder organische Synthesechemiker kennen und anwenden sollte.

Erick M. Carreira, born in La Habana, Cuba, obtained a B.S. degree in 1984 from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign under the supervision of Scott E. Denmark, and a PhD in 1990 from Harvard University under the supervision of David A. Evans. After carrying out postdoctoral work with Peter Dervan at the California Institute of Technology through mid-1992, he joined the faculty at the same institution as an assistant professor of chemistry and was promoted to full professor in 1997. In 1998, he moved to the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry at the ETH-Zurich, Switzerland. He has over 180 research publications and numerous patents to his name. He is the recipient of, among others, the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry the Nobel Laureate Signature Award, and he has held the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering as well as the Tetrahedron Chair Prize. Professor Carreira's research program is focused on the four interrelated areas of organic synthesis: catalysis, methodology, natural products synthesis, and bioorganic chemistry.

Lisbet Kvaerno, born in Denmark, received her M.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Copenhagen under Prof. Jesper Wengel. She obtained her PhD in 2004 after working in total synthesis at the Technical University of Denmark under Prof. David Tanner and in medicinal chemistry at the ETH Zurich supervised by Prof. Erick M. Carreira. As a postdoctoral fellow in the research group of Prof. David A. Evans at Harvard University, she completed the total synthesis of the marine natural product (+)-azaspiracid. After a brief period as an independent junior group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Coal Research in Muelheim, Germany, she joined Lundbeck in Copenhagen as a process chemist in the late summer of 2008.