Synthesis of Natural Products and Neurons
Written by Professor Dirk Trauner
Marcelin Berthelot once famously stated that “chemistry creates its own object“ distinguishing it from other fields, which are confined to studying existing phenomena. This amazing ability to synthesize new objects and systems, and then study their properties, however, is no longer confided to chemistry but can be applied to biology as well. For instance, neural systems with completely new functional properties can be created by synthetically modifying the basic switches in neurons. Using the techniques of chemical synthesis we have indeed been able to manipulate some of these key molecular modules, such as potassium channels, ionotropic glutamate receptors, and more recently metabotropic glutamate receptors. By adding a synthetic photoswitch to engineered versions of these transmembrane proteins, we have rendered them light-sensitive. These devices have found various biological applications, for instance in the study of neural networks or in an attempt to create an artificial vision process.
While a large portion of my talk will be dedicated to „synthetic neurobiology“, I will also briefly touch on our program on natural product total synthesis and synthetic methodology. Total synthesis is indeed a fascinating intellectual exercise and an ideal platform for the invention and validation of new synthetic methodology. This point will be illustrated with a biomimetic synthesis of the shimalactones, a pair of structurally intriguing natural products with neuritogenic activity.
