Exotic amino acids made easy with radicals
Stereoselective radical coupling to rival classic Strecker synthesis for easy access to unusual amino acids
The 168-year-old Strecker amino acid synthesis might have to pack its bags to make room for a radical reaction that can make even the most exotic α-amino acids. The method has already been put through its paces in medicinal chemistry labs at pharma companies Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Prompted by medicinal chemists at Pfizer, whose efforts to make non-natural amino acids were thwarted by existing methods’ shortcomings, Phil Baran from the Scripps Research Institute in the US and his team came up with an entirely new way to make them. ‘It would be very hard to find a simpler way to put them together,’ Baran says.