UD chemist recognized for techniques used in creating new drugs

Douglass F. Taber (left), professor of chemistry and biochemistry, discusses his research with chemistry graduate student and research assistant Lisi Cai.

7:00 p.m., Nov. 19, 2003--Douglass F. Taber, University of Delaware professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Founded in 1948, AAAS is the world’s largest federation of scientists, with more than 134,000 members from 130 countries and 272 affiliated societies with more than 10 million members.

Fellows are elected by their peers, and 291 new fellows, who have “advanced science or fostered applications deemed scientifically or socially distinguished,” will be honored at the 2004 AAAS annual meeting in February in Seattle.

Taber, who conducts research on the construction of molecular rings with particular emphasis on synthesizing the pain-killing drug morphine, likened the AAAS award to a “lifetime achievement award.”

The organization serves as “an extended community of scientists,” he said, and the honor is “recognition from that community of your accomplishments and the impact you have made.”

Through the course of his career, Taber has published 152 papers and in 2002, 86 of those papers were cited by other researchers. Some of those citations were for papers he had published 20 years ago or more.

“Our interest is in ring construction,” Taber said of his laboratory, which includes postdoctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students. “What motivates us, ultimately, is pharmaceuticals.”

Through advances in modern technology, chemists now have a keen understanding of biological receptors and can readily generate models of hundreds of thousands of molecules to “see what fits,” Taber said.

Those hundreds of thousands can be pared down to the 5,000 that best fit the receptor. Those will be sorted into organic chemical space, Taber said, and a short list of 100 will be generated that between them are representative of that space.

This approach breaks down, Taber said, when the medicinal chemist finds that the molecules on the list of 100 are too complicated to manufacture, with molecular ring construction presenting a particular hurdle. “Our efforts are aimed at more effective ring construction,” he said.

Taber developed new molecular reactivity leading to a method for organic ring construction, then illustrated the power of the method by using it to make morphine. “This is not the first synthesis of morphine,” he said, “but it is the first time it has been made in this way.” In the process, rings are formed through intramolecular carbon-hydrogen insertion.

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo by Duane Perry

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