CHEM5450 - Chemical Neuroscience

Natural products, such as tetrodotoxin, kainic acid and morphine, have played a crucial role in the development of neuroscience. Using selected chemical syntheses as a framework, I will provide an introduction to neuroscience for chemists blended with an intense course in synthetic design ("Syntheseplanung"). The structure, function and synthesis of the following molecules will be analyzed: tetrodotoxin, saxitoxin, kainic acid, nicotine, epibatidine, coniine, tubocurarine, histrionicotoxin, ibotenic acid, strychnine, picrotine, chrysanthemic acid, ivermectin, muscarine, morphine, salvinorin A, THC, lysergic acid, forskolin, staurosporin, eglumegad, physostigmine, huperzin A, galanthamine, cocaine, reserpine, thapsigargin, ouabagenin, ryanodine, capsaicin, resiniferatoxin, retinal, carotene, menthol, santalol, camphor, and the prostaglandins. The structure and function of important ion channels, GPCRs, transporters and enzymes and their ligands will be discussed using PyMol files.
The goal of this course is to get as many synthetic chemists excited about neuroscience as possible (and a few neuroscientists stoked about synthesis). The importance of structural and pharmacological databases (PDB and IUPHAR, respectively) and the usefulness of the Reaxys database (and SciFinder) for synthetic planning will be demonstrated.
Requirements: A familiarity with synthetic organic chemistry and (named) chemical reactions, a mastery of the Nernst equation, and a willingness to learn more about one of the greatest, if not the greatest scientific challenges of our times: to figure out how the human brain work