Biomimetic Synthesis

An field of organic chemical synthesis that is explicitly biologically inspired is known as "biomimetic synthesis." The term refers to both programmes of study where a synthetic reaction or reactions are designed to mimic one or more known enzymatic transformations of an established biosynthetic pathway as well as the testing of a "biogenetic hypothesis" (conjectured course of a biosynthesis in nature) through execution of a series of reactions designed to parallel the proposed biosynthesis. Sir Robert Robinson's organic synthesis of the alkaloid tropinone is the first often acknowledged example of a biomimetic synthesis. E.J. Corey's carbenium-mediated cyclization of an engineered linear polyene to produce a tetracyclic steroid ring system is a more recent example. This work built on Albert Eschenmoser, Gilbert Stork, and W.S. Johnson's extensive studies to define the conditions necessary to start and stop the cyclization as well as to stabilise the cationic carbenium group during the cyclization. According to the second definition, the design and characterization of such catalytic systems has been referred to as biomimetic chemistry. Synthetic organic or inorganic catalysts used to carry out a chemical transformation carried out in nature by a biocatalyst are said to be carrying out a biomimetic synthesis.