Natural Product Synthesis and Synthetic Methodology
The capability of understanding and imitating nature’s pathways is of highest priority for an organic chemist. Probing a postulated biosynthetic route brings about the advantage that a whole family of natural products is accessed via a single synthetic route, instead of only an individual molecule. This is highly desirable in terms of synthetic efficiency and makes optimization of the respective synthetic sequence worthwhile, as this leads to an improved access not only to one, but to a group of biologically interesting molecules of a single structure type.
However, nature's pathways are confined to specific structure types, thus restricting biomimetic synthesis with respect to structural diversification. Expanding the network of natural products beyond biogenetic relationships overcomes these limitations. The main goal is to link biogenetically completely unrelated natural products by a shared synthetic route. This route is upgraded every time a synthesis makes use of it - hence network diversification leads to a rise in revenue.