Progress towards the total synthesis of tedanolide: an efficient assembly of the C1–C11 subunit

The C1–C11 subunit of tedanolide was constructed using a boron-mediated syn aldol reaction as the key step to control the C6 and C7 stereocenters. Other features of this work include the asymmetric Sharpless dihydroxylation to incorporate the C2, C3 hydroxyl groups, selective protection of the hydroxyl group at C2 as well as the usage of a tert-butyl ester to tolerate the attack of Grignard and enolate reagents.