S1.E7: Surfin' the ProTides - Fun With Nucleosides : Part 2

For the 7th course, Dani and LC serve up a hearty helping of nucleoside chemistry with Artis Klapars and Dan DiRocco from the #MerckChemistry Rahway NJ Process Chemistry group. We tee off this episode by diving into the ProTide pool to find out what exactly ProTides are why they are so important for the development of common antiviral and anticancer drugs. Then, Artis and Dan tell us about their efforts to develop a green solution to the ProTide synthesis problem by designing a multifunctional catalyst that stereoselectively assembles ProDrugs - the results of which were published in Science and recognized by the 2020 EPA Green Chemistry Challenge award! Designing this catalysts was no small feat - with Artis and Dan sharing their approach to catalysts design (think HTE, RPKA, and modeling) and how to persevere through the ups and downs of industrial research. We end our discussion by getting their perspectives on green manufacturing and what challenges still exist for constructing non-canonical nucleosides. 

Read the paper we discussed today here:

A multifunctional catalyst that stereoselectively assembles prodrugs - Science 

Efficient synthesis of antiviral agent uprifosbuvir enabled by new synthetic methods - Chem Sci

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