U.S. researchers develop chemical reaction with potential to speed drug development

Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-08 17:55:31|Editor: Liangyu
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LOS ANGELES, July 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. researchers report that they have developed a new method for the direct conversion of simple hydrocarbon building blocks into valuable materials such as pharmaceuticals in a way that dependably creates the same chemical bonds and orientations.

Many molecules come in two mirror-image configurations, often labeled left-handed and right-handed. Usually, only one of the two is biologically desired, but the issue is more complicated than that, Uttam Tambar, study author and associate professor of Biochemistry at UT Southwestern, said in a statement.

"Unsaturated hydrocarbons contain only two types of bonds, carbon-hydrogen and carbon-carbon. It is very challenging to selectively transform the starting material hydrocarbon, called the feedstock, into a product in which you have selectively transformed one carbon-hydrogen bond into a new bond in every molecule. We are able to do that," Tambar said.

According to the new study recently published online in Nature, a specially designed "chiral catalyst" is used to oxidize hydrocarbons into multifunctional compounds that are obtained in high purity and are readily converted into an assortment of molecules that will streamline the synthesis of future pharmaceutical drugs.

Researchers are not only dealing with left-or right-handed configuration, but also dealing with what position of the molecule is chemically modified.

Lead author of the study Leila Bayeh explained that "chiral catalyst" means that the catalyst that orchestrates the entire reaction has the proper orientation -- a left- or right-handed configuration as the situation requires -- in order to create the desired chemical transformation.

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