From: Jacob Zabicky (zabicky$##$bgumail.bgu.ac.il)
Date: Sun Feb 13 2000 - 07:30:53 EST
Hello Albert,
Maybe unadvertedly you touched a sour point. The following opinion may not
sound very encouraging but the conclusions you may reach take into account
present trends and a vision of the future, that might look bright or dim,
according to ones own taste. The following is written at the risk of
causing the rage of many learned colleagues,
All branches you mentioned of organic synthesis will be relagated in the
future to purely mechanical decisions, automatic if you wish. Instead of
planning and carrying out lengthy synthetic paths, people will opt for
computing them in terms of synthones derived from available sources, and
estimating reaction kinetics and yields. Once a set of alternative
synthetic paths is obtained, people will mount a synthesis train made of
standard units, where the process will be carried out according to the
calculated parameters. Perhaps even "mounting" will require minimal
intervention in well-engineered contraptions. If the yields of the product
are reasonable, then only the final purification (again, almost automatic)
operations will turn out the desired stuff, otherwise, next alternative
will be executed.
In some branches this approach is already quite advanced (although not
without opposition). For example, the classical approach was synthesizing
long series of compounds with potential pharmaceutical activity, to be
individually tested for reactivity and ancillary specifications. The
futuristic antithetical approach consists of preparing a "library,"
namely, a mixture of compounds that were synthesized together according to
certain rationale, to be tested for certain activity. If activity is
apparent, then effort is invested to identify, isolate, analyze and
synthesize the active principles of the library.
Perhaps in the future learning synthetic chemistry will focus on how to
program the software that is in control of the various activities just
decribed. The actual syntheses will be performed by technicians or chemists
trained in the operation of the semiautomatic or automatic equipment. This
is, to my chagrin, relegation to ablivion of the art of organic synthesis
as we knew it in the past.
Have fun,
Jacob
>Hi, everybody,
>What area of synthetic organic chemistry do you think is the most
>promising?
>(a). Nature products, (b). Nucleosides (c). Lipids (d). Photosynthesis
>(e). Organometalic compounds (f).other (Please give a specific area). I
>also hope that you will list your reasons.
>Thank you.
>
>Albert
>
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