Ginger active constituents have been successfully recovered from industrialwaste biomasses of fermented ginger and converted into the corresponding diols and alcohols by stereoselective biocatalyzed reductions.
readily available from ginger, can be easily transformed into chiral derivatives. Zingerol 2, a reduced product of zingerone 1 is expected to be an important new medicinal lead compound. We have achieved a concisesynthesis of optically active zingerol (R)-2 and (S)-2 by the lipase-catalyzed stereoselective transesterification of racemic 2. Under the optimized conditions, a lipase from Alcaligenes sp