The seminar will focus on three innovative strategies for generating reactive organic intermediates with precise control over downstream reactivity, unlocking new synthetic methods. The first approach will introduce a novel kinetic and dynamic kinetic resolution of polysubstituted alkenes, with insights into the origins of this selectivity. This strategy is extended to palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of cyanohydrins with aryl bromides and a transition-metal-free, enantiospecific alkylation of secondary tosylates, yielding aryl and stereogenic alkyl ketones. The second system will introduce a new synthetic logic for the use of formate as a formal source of hydrogen atoms and carbon dioxide radical anion that is unlocked through photocatalytic activation of the formate C–H bond. Implementation of this reaction design framework into alkene functionalization in both C–C bond-forming processes and reductive deoxygenation reactions will be described. Finally, the third strategy will outline the bio-catalytic methods for the asymmetric synthesis of complex molecules such as enantioenriched cyclopropanes, oxazolidinones, and lactones using engineered metalloenzymes, achieving high chemo- and enantioselectivity.