‘Tour de force’ by Chinese chemists could overturn high cost of drug treatments
The research team’s straightforward alternative to expensive, complex and dangerous production method hailed as ‘Nobel Prize level’
The research was co-led by Zhang Xiaheng, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, and Xue Xiaosong, a professor with the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, and published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
The researchers proposed a straightforward alternative to the expensive, complex and dangerous method used by the chemical industry for more than a century to synthesise drugs and pesticides from a class of organic compounds called amines.
According to the paper, the team’s approach overcomes the many issues that have plagued the classical method – including the risk of explosions – and holds promise for making the production of important chemicals safer and more affordable.
“Overall, the authors have delivered a true tour de force here, not just developing the method but doing extensive scope, in-depth mechanistic studies and synthetic applications that clearly demonstrate the capabilities of this chemistry to be useful in many contexts,” Bagley said.