The 591st meeting of the Sydney University Chemical Society will be held on Wednesday 11th June in Le Fèvre Lecture Theatre 2 of the Chemistry Building on the campus of The University of Sydney. The speaker will be Assoc. Professor Mary Garson from the University of Queensland.

 

Chemical Tricks, Isocyanides, and Marine Antifoulants

Assoc. Prof. Mary J. Garson

Department of Chemistry, University of Queensland

 

The isocyanide functionality, together with biosynthetically-related substituents such as -NCS, -SCN, -NCO and -NCCl2, is a common motif in marine invertebrate chemistry, particularly in terpene natural products. Based on standard pharmaceutical screens (cytotoxicity, antimalarial and antitubercular assay) these functional groups impart considerable biological activity to the natural product. Yet when tested in situ these compounds show great diversity in their effects on other marine animals.1,2

In this presentation I will overview our chemical work on marine isocyanides and related nitrogenous compounds, and explore our current progress in understanding their biosynthesis.1,3 The potential of these and other marine compounds as foulant controls will be explored.

References

  1. M.J. Garson, In Atta-ur-Rahman (Ed) Studies in Natural Products Chemistry Vol 21B, Elsevier, Amsterdam 2000, p. 329.
  2. M.J. Garson, In J.B. McLintock, B.J. Baker (Eds) Marine Chemical Ecology, CRC Press, Boca Raton 2001, p. 71-114.
  3. J.S. Simpson and M.J. Garson, Tetrahedron Lett, 42 (2001) 4267-4269.

 

Wednesday 11th June at 5:30pm

Le Fèvre Lecture Theatre 2

Refreshments from 5:00pm