Archive for January, 2013

Thiopeptide antibiotics, alpha-haloaldehydes, marine natural products and anticancer steroids – Your NPR issue 2


Welcome to NPR Issue 2, 2013

Issue 2s, home to the much awaited Marine Natural Products review by John Blunt et al., and much more.

Featuring on the front cover is the work of Jorge A. R. Salvador, M. Luisa Sá e Melo and colleagues at University of Coimbra and Universidade da Beira Interior (Portugal), illustrating their review detailing the anticancer activity of steroids.




In this issue:

Hot off the press
Robert A. Hill and Andrew Sutherland
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP90051C

A personal selection of 33 recent papers is presented covering various aspects of current developments in bioorganic chemistry and novel natural products such as breitfussin A from the Arctic hydrozoan Thuiaria breitfussi.

Biosynthesis of thiopeptide antibiotics and their pathway engineering
Qi Zhang and Wen Liu
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20107K

A Highlight including advances during 2009–2012 in understanding the generality and specificity of thiopeptide biosynthesis, and on this basis, in expanding the structural diversity by pathway engineering.

 α-Haloaldehydes: versatile building blocks for natural product synthesis
Robert Britton and Baldip Kang
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20108A

This Highlight summarizes the organocatalytic processes available for the enantioselective preparation of α-haloaldehydes and their stereoselective conversion into natural products.

Marine natural products
John W. Blunt, Brent R. Copp, Robert A. Keyzers, Murray H. G. Munro and Michèle R. Prinsep
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20112G

The much awaited Marine Natural Products review article! Included is an example of the development of genome mining for the discovery of new compounds from marine microbes leading to the finding of salinosporamide K from Salinispora pacifica.

Missed the previous ones? Catch up with the past 5 years of this series:
Marine Natural Products – 2012
Marine Natural Products – 2011
Marine Natural Products – 2010
Marine Natural Products – 2009
Marine Natural Products – 2008

Anticancer steroids: linking natural and semi-synthetic compounds
Jorge A. R. Salvador, João F. S. Carvalho, Marco A. C. Neves, Samuel M. Silvestre, Alcino J. Leitão, M. Manuel C. Silva and M. Luisa Sá e Melo
DOI: 10.1039/C2NP20082A

Steroids, a widespread class of natural compounds, have shown great therapeutic value for a broad array of pathologies. This overview is focused on their anticancer activity, which is very representative of a rich structural diversity and ability to interact with various biological targets and pathways.

Want to see your work in NPR?

Reviews, Highlights and Viewpoints in NPR are generally solicited by members of the editorial board; however we are happy to consider submission enquiries from authors. If you are interested in writing an article for NPR please contact the editorial office with a brief synopsis.

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Welcome to Professor Daniel Romo who joins the NPR Editorial Board

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Daniel Romo to the Editorial Board of Natural Products Reports, as of January 2013. 

Daniel Romo received his B.A. in chemistry/biology from Texas A&M and a PhD in Chemistry from Colorado State University as a NSF Minority Graduate Fellow under the tutelage of the late Prof. Albert I. Meyers. Following postdoctoral studies at Harvard as an American Cancer Society Fellow, with Prof. Stuart L. Schreiber, he began his independent career at TexasA&M in 1993 and is currently Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Natural Products LINCPHIN Laboratory (TAMU).

Research interests in the Romo Group are at the interface of chemistry and biology focused on total synthesis and biomechanistic studies of natural products and the asymmetric synthesis and application of beta-lactones in organic synthesis and as potential drug candidates. This search led Romo to examine marine specimens –  many recent bioactive molecules have been discovered in marine species that are now making their way to the clinic.
Romo sees natural products as playgrounds for developing new synthetic strategies and making related compounds with potentially important therapeutic applications. Natural products are keys to cell biology, and he is working to build the bridge between synthesis and biology.

‘If I couldn’t be dreaming up ways to make natural products, I would want to be diving to isolate those natural products and fishing from the deck on my off time!’ says Daniel.

Why not read Daniel Romo’s latest NPR review article:

Biosynthesis, asymmetric synthesis, and pharmacology, including cellular targets, of the pyrrole-2-aminoimidazole marine alkaloids
Ali Al-Mourabit, Manuel A. Zancanella, Supriya Tilvi and Daniel Romo
DOI: 10.1039/C0NP00013B

 
NPR benefits from the expertise of exceptional scientists guiding the development of the journal. Do you know who they are? Find out more on our Editorial and Advisory Board members.
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Meet the NPR Editorial team – see where and when you can meet us in 2013

The Natural Product Reports Editorial team will be attending a number of conferences in 2013 and we would be delighted to meet you there.  

We’re also the team behind NPR’s sister journals Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, MedChemComm, and the latest addition to the portfolio, Toxicology Research, so we’ll happily discuss your interdisciplinary research work. In fact, many of our authors choose to publish their research across all of these titles.    

Here are just some of the conferences where you can meet us in the coming months:  

RSC India Roadshow, visiting Kolkata, Pune and Bangalore – 5-11 February 2013, India – View the full details, including the confirmed speakers’ list– Meet Richard
Society of Toxicology’s 52nd Annual Meeting –10-14 March 2013, San Antonio, Texas, USA – Meet Marie
40th Lakeland Heterocyclic meeting – 9-13 May 2013, Grasmere, UK – Meet Marie
Frontiers in Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) – 23-26 June 2013, San Francisco, USA – Meet Richard
8-ISMSC (International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry) – 07-11 July 2013, Washington DC, USA – Meet Richard
ESOC 2013 (8th European Symposium on Organic Chemistry) – 08-12 July 2013, Marseille, France – Meet Marie
OMCOS 17 (IUPAC Conference on Organometallic Chemistry Towards Organic Synthesis)- 28 July to 01 August 2013, Fort Collins, USA – Meet Marie
EUROTOX 2013– 01-04 September 2013, Interlaken, Switzerland – Meet Marie
Fall ACS meeting– 08-12 September 2013, Indianapolis, USA – Meet Richard
Asian Medicinal Chemistry Conference – October 2013, Taipei, Taiwan – Meet Richard
15th BMOS – Brazilian Meeting on Organic Synthesis, 10-13 November 2013, Campos do Jordão, Brazil – Meet Richard    

Let us know if you are planning on attending any of these meetings, as it would be lovely to see you there!   

     

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