Organic Chemistry CHM 252 and CHM 254L
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Organic Chemistry CHM 252 and CHM 254L
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A team of scientists from the University of Central Venezuela has discovered a very exciting new antitumor drug, UCV-2001. UCV-2001 is very similar in structure to a compound that our organic chemistry class looked at in Spring 1999 (UEQ-301) which was discovered by a research group at the University of Ecuador at Quito. UEQ-301 had been isolated from a rare and endangered aquatic plant (Benthicacea amazonium) that grows in certain select locations on the bottom of the Amazon River in Venezuela and a synthesis was proposed by the Nazareth Organic Chemistry class of 1999. Like UEQ-301, this new compound, UCV-2001 has been isolated from a natural occurring plant source high in the rainforest canopy (Altitudinacea superiorium) with high affinity and selectively to bind to cancerous tumors and destroy them. As you might imagine, a very strict international environmental law protects this plant and it cannot be harvested for the drug nor can it be exported from the South American rainforest. Therefore, a great deal of interest exists in its potential to be synthesized. Your company "New Drugs ‘R Us" has been contracted by the Venezuelan group to find a way to make the drug synthetically. Your company task is to make this drug using any common organic reagents of 4 carbons or less.
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Timm A. Knoerzer Last Updated Tuesday, April 24, 2001 02:33:11 PM |
