Explorations into New Reaction Chemistry

Abstract This Review describes the basic concepts that have guided our exploration of new chemical reactions by giving examples of results from my research group. Our strategy of carrying out research is to investigate three to four different topics at a time so we can gather as many results as possible. These may at first appear unrelated to each other but may have the potential to be united into a greater hypothesis after repeated feedback. Three scenarios from our research are presented: the “oxidative–reductive condensation reaction” devised in 1960, which after an interval of nearly 40 years brought forth the new concept of using compounds of structure Ph 2 POR as reducing reagents; the “TiCl 4 ‐aldol reaction” of 1973 that eventually led to the present “base‐promoted aldol reaction” through a chain of ideas; and the “glycosylation reaction using fluorosugars” from 1984 which recently bloomed into “stereocontrolled glycosylation”. Thus, it can be said that by reviewing what we had done before, we were able to expand on it to achieve new outcomes.