Upon deprotonation N,N-dibenzylglycine esters undergo alkylation and condensation reactions at the a-carbon atom with various electrophiles. ... Various amino acid derivatives have been developed to allow alkylationl and condensation with carbonyl compounds2 at the a-carbon atom. However, most of the amine protecting/ activating groups used are either labile, and thus not compat- ible with multistep synthetic transformations, or difficult to remove selectively ...