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Molecule matters

The Quinine story: A 100-year saga

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Abstract

Ever since its isolation in 1820, Quinine has played a crucial role in the development of organic chemistry, chemical industry and modern medicine. The total synthesis of quinine, widely regarded as anevent of epochal importancewas claimed by Woodward and Doering in 1945. This work, however, heavily relied on unsubstantiated literature reports and it appears that Woodward’s work fell short of a total synthesis of quinine. The first stereoselective total synthesis of quinine was accomplished only in 2001, by Stork, who incidentally is the originator of the concept of stereoselectivity in total synthesis. Naturally, this work has been attested as a landmark in organic synthesis by leaders in the field.

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Suggested Reading

  1. V Nair, R S Menon and S Vellalath, Natural Product Communi cations, Vol.1, p.899, 2006.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Organic Chemistry Section National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology-CSIR, Trivandrum, 695 019, India

    Vijay Nair & Sreekumar Vellalath

Authors
  1. Vijay Nair
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  2. Sreekumar Vellalath
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Correspondence to Vijay Nair.

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(left) Vijay Nair after a 16-year career with Lederle Laboratories, USA, joined the Regional Research Laboratory-CSIR in 1990. From 1997 to 2001 he was the Director of the Institute. Recently he was awarded the prestigious Ramanna Fellowship instituted by the DST, Government of India. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Cochin University of Science and Technology.

(right) Sreekumar Vellalath has recently completed his PhD under the guidance of Vijay Nair at the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology- CSIR.

This article is adapted from an earlier review written by the same authors [1].

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Nair, V., Vellalath, S. Molecule matters. Reson 16, 1266–1272 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-011-0142-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-011-0142-9

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