Thiamine, a common enzymatic cofactor, catalyses the benzoin condensation. From 1943, a panoply of mechanistic proposals were invoked to explain the intriguing transformation until two seminal papers by Ronald Breslow about 15 years after the discovery of this reaction helped resolve the mechanistic conundrum and heralded the birth of NHC-organocatalysis.

中文翻译：

---

N-杂环卡宾有机催化的诞生


硫胺素是一种常见的酶促辅因子，可催化安息香缩合。从 1943 年开始，人们援引了一整套机械论提案来解释这种有趣的转变，直到发现这种反应大约 15 年后，罗纳德·布雷斯洛 （Ronald Breslow） 的两篇开创性论文帮助解决了机械难题，并预示着 NHC 有机催化的诞生。