Used in organic synthesis as a chiral building block for the preparation of complex molecules, particularly in pharmaceutical research. It serves as a precursor for the development of enantioselective catalysts, which are crucial in asymmetric synthesis to produce single-enantiomer compounds. Additionally, it finds application in the study of enzyme mechanisms and the design of enzyme inhibitors due to its structural similarity to natural amino acids. Its sterically hindered structure also makes it valuable in the development of ligands for metal coordination chemistry.