While creating something in the laboratory is generally expected to be mimicry, recreation of something natural immediately draws the attention of the concerned fields of application.
Plants have many defense mechanisms to help battle the attack of insects. One of the important self-defending molecules with interesting biological properties is the compound - azadirachtin - hence, a natural compound that stops predatory insects from feeding.
Azadirachtin, being a highly active substance capable of inhibiting larval development of a broad spectrum of killer-insects, are being eyed by scientists for long for recreation, as interestingly, at the same time, it is also harmless for both mammals and benign insects like bees and ladybugs.
Isolated from the neem tree, its molecule-structure is complicated and hence synthesizing it has been difficult for decades, until only recently, two scientists have successfully managed to make the molecule involve a ‘Claisen rearrangement.’
This have helped them make the larval-inhibiting molecule undergo a radical cyclization reaction.
Leading this research for 22 long years, Steven V. Ley at the University of Cambridge said,
While we have been working on this complex synthesis, we have also developed a number of new methods that are of general use for the construction of other important molecules.
This successful route to the synthetic production of azadirachtin molecules will soon lead to develop simpler derivatives of azadirachtin that are necessarily stable.
Ah! Here seems to be yet another addition to a new generation of insecticides, which importantly are environmentally acceptable.
