Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/C51890X/1
Title:	Total Synthesis Without Protecting Groups: The Alkaloids Of Tuberosa Stemona
Principal Investigator:	Booker-Milburn, Professor KI
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Chemistry
Organisation:	University of Bristol
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 September 2005	Ends:	28 February 2009	Value (£):	267,538
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Biological & Medicinal Chem. Chemical Synthetic Methodology
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
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Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Natural product synthesis is an large research field where chemists attempt to manufacture complex substances that occur in nature from simpler, readil available chemical building blocks.The big question is why should we do this?Well, many of these natural products have potent biological activity and could potentially be used as medicines for the treatment of life threatening diseases 6 heart disease, cancer, MRSA'superbug' infections, Parkinson's disease, AIDS, asthma etc. However many of these natural products come from rare an threatened plant species and can only be isolated in minuscule quantities.It is a popular misconception that new life saving drugs are developed by doctors in hospitals. The reality is that modem drugs are designed and synthesised t synthetic chemists, many of whom learnt their craft doing natural product synthesis. Often a biologically active natural product is simply too toxic to be use safely on humans as a medicine - if this natural product is' recreated' by synthesis in the lab then the synthetic route can be modified to make 'look-a-like' drug that will hopefully be less toxic but still medically useful.Although sometimes the synthesis of the natural product itself may not appear immediately useful, the new technology and methodology developed in order I complete the goal is often used by other chemists for other important means. This 'trickle down' technology is often very beneficial to chemistry as a whole much in the same way as cutting edge developments in F1 racing engines end up in your parents car or developments from NASA allow your next mobile phone to be superior to your friends!The chemistry described in this proposal aims to synthesise some natural products which are isolated from the roots of a Chinese plant. For centuries tt Chinese have used extracts of this root (in a tea) to help alleviate the symptoms and discomfort of tuberculosis and bronchitis.Our main aim is to synthesise these natural products without using protecting groups. Traditionally protecting groups are used to prevent sensitive portions of molecule from interacting with each other and other chemicals used in a synthesis - trouble is that protecting groups make a synthesis unnecessarily Ion! Imagine wanting to travel from Manchester to London to see a concert but going via Glasgow, Dublin and Cardiff- might be fun but you would miss the band!We intend to get around protecting group problems by employing a technique known as 'photochemistry'. In much the same way as plants use sunlight for photosynthesis we will use light from special sources such as lasers to persuade out molecules to react in new and interesting ways. One of the great advantage of photochernistry is that it avoids the use of highly reactive and often dangerous chemicals traditionally used synthesis - in that sense photochernistry is a very 'green technology' as no toxic waste is produced.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.bris.ac.uk