Recent Advances in Natural Products Chemistry

doi:10.1515/ci.2012.34.3.29a

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Recent Advances in Natural Products Chemistry

Published/Copyright: May 1, 2012

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From the journal Chemistry International -- Newsmagazine for IUPAC Volume 34 Issue 3

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Recent Advances in Natural Products Chemistry

by Minoru Isobe

An IUPAC-ACC Joint Workshop on Recent Advances of Natural Product Chemistry was held at Queen Sirikit Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand, on 5 September 2011. Organized by Supa Hannongbua (Kasetsart University), Somdej Kanokmedhakul (Khon Kaen University), and Minoru Isobe (National Tsing Hua University), the workshop was part of IUPAC project 2011-041-1-300, Strategic Planning for a New East and Southeast Asian Network for Organic Chemistry.

Natural product chemistry includes many basic sciences comprising structural studies, chromatography, spectroscopy, medicinal chemistry, synthetic chemistry, drug discovery, computational chemistry, chemical biology, NMR, mass spectroscopy, CD, molecular chirality, molecular binding, and molecular assembly. The main objective of this workshop was to highlight the importance of multidisciplinal sciences for natural product chemistry—starting with the graduate student level—in order to foster cooperation among young researchers. The audience of about 100 consisted of Ph.D. students or younger as well as academics who were interested in expanding their research into this field.

M. Isobe (left), S. Kanokmethakul, and K. Suwanborilux.

The first speaker was Thomas Franz, Max Plank Institute for Biology of Ageing, Köln, Germany, who presented on “Advanced Analysis of Chemical Modifications of Proteins by Mass Spectrometry.” He introduced explosive developments in the use of mass spectrometry for bioanalytical purposes. The clear application to Moya-moya disease was demonstrated by trace detection of the modified proteins. The second speaker was Zhen Yang from the College of Chemistry, Peking University, China, who discussed “The Total Synthesis of Micrandilactones,” which are very complex nortriterpenoids. He invited the audience to become familiar with Pd-catalyzed cross coupling, annulation, ring cyclization metathesis, etc. and utilize them for daily experiments. The third lecture, by Yoshiko Murata of the Suntory Institute for Bioorganic Research, Osaka, Japan, was on “Iron Acquisition Mechanism of Barley as Explored by Mugineic Acids.” He told the whole story, from finding the active compound, elucidation and synthesis of M-acid, and molecular- and gene-level analysis and control for the plant to uptake the iron from the soil. The last speaker was Ya-Ching Shen from the College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, who discussed several new compounds found in Taiwanese Marine sponges and soft corals that have anti-tumor activity. Many analogs of macrocyclic taxol analogs were also introduced.

Workshop participants were treated to four lectures of convergent molecular science involving natural products. These projects were developed on the basis of multidisciplinary organic chemistry of biomolecules.

iupac.org/project/2011-041-1-300

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Published Online: 2012-05-01

Published in Print: 2012-05

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https://doi.org/10.1515/ci.2012.34.3.29a