Re: What is your newest discovery?

You've asked a very open question so I could ramble on for ages but I'll give you a little overview on my research and what new about it.

I'm looking at the alkaloid Methyllycaconitine which is found in many species of Delphinium flowering plants, you can usually buy them from nurseries as they have very pretty blue flowers. The Delphinium plants are found all over North America, quite a few as weeds, the one most well known is called the Larkspur, as lots of American cattle farmers hate it.
They hate it because when their cattle eat the plants in the field they can often die from the alkaloid Methyllycaconitine thats found in the plant.

Methyllycaconitine is a very big natural chemical and what Im trying to do is discover which parts of the molecule make it toxic. I do this by making small molecules that have some features of the main molecule but not all of them and seeing if they are just as toxic.

What we hope is that we can make small simple molecules that can act just like Methyllycaconitine. The reason we want to do this is because whilst Methyllycaconitine is toxic to animals its many, many times more toxic to insects and hopefully we can make some new insecticides that will be really effective at protecting crops.

I cant tell you much more at the moment because Im still in the process of testing the molecules I have made.I have made molecules that are about a 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the natural compound and hopefully they can be as effective as the natural compound itself at killing bugs.(Fingers crossed)

Anyway hope that tells you a little about what I do and maybe you can go out and learn a few things about some of the wonderful chemicals that native plants produce naturally.

regards
David Barker