"We took small molecules and put them together like a Lego game," said lead researcher Professor Michael Sherburn from the Institute of Chemistry at the Australian National University. "We carefully designed the building blocks so that in the first reaction they create the most preferred product for the second reaction. This means that large and complex molecules can be efficiently prepared."
[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
Chemists have developed a revolutionary new method for producing natural chemicals by joining together smaller molecules similar to Lego blocks. The researchers were able to utilize the innovative method in order to prepare an expensive anti-inflammatory drug that has the potential to treat cancer and malaria, a drug called pseudopterosin.
The breakthrough could lead to finding new and cheaper ways to prepare rare and expensive drugs in large quantities. "We took small molecules and put them together like a Lego game," said lead researcher Professor Michael Sherburn from the Institute of Chemistry at the Australian National University. "We carefully designed the building blocks so that in the first reaction they create the most preferred product for the second reaction. It's pretty magical. This means that large and complex molecules can be efficiently prepared."
Medicines of the type that the researchers were able to prepare were previously synthesized using cumbersome methods. Chemists used a similar molecule and changed it slightly, or a lot. It is a long and tedious process, with unwanted structural features removed and converted into others. "This process produces large amounts of waste," explains the lead researcher. The research group tried its innovative method by preparing pseudopterosin, a powerful anti-inflammatory and anesthetic drug, available today only in tiny quantities due to the fact that it is extracted from dried coral found in the Bahamas.
The research began as part of basic science when scientists try to find ways to make supposedly impossible molecules of conjugated hydrocarbons. Before conducting the actual experiments, the researchers ran computer simulations with the help of supercomputers, and the results showed that their method has great potential. "Our method is a technique that allows a more sophisticated and faster preparation of important materials," says one of the researchers. "The pseudopterosin synthesis is the tip of the iceberg. We are on our way to developing effective syntheses of other important drugs. Our method also has potential in industrial-scale production, which will further reduce the costs of preparing important drugs," says the lead researcher.
