The present invention provides peptide-based phosphorylation catalysts (PBPC's) for the asymmetric monophosphorylation of cyclitols, particularly myo-inositols. The PBPC's of the invention effect a regio and enantioselective phosphorylation of a myo-inositol in a manner analogous to enzymatic kinases, thereby functioning as effective "kinase mimics." Although orders of magnitude less complex in terms of structure than macromolecular proteins, the PBPC's of the invention control product formation with high enantioselectivity (98% ee). The synthetic (+)-myo-inositol-1-phosphate is optically and spectroscopically equivalent to naturally occuring compound. The ability of the low molecular weight PBPC's of the present invention to mimic stereoselective enzymes represents a powerful approach toward catalytic asymmetric synthesis of biologically important molecules, and for mechanistic modeling of biochemical transformations to enable their use in drug applications.