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ANU chemists manufacture rare medical chemicals with new method, offering hope for cheaper drugs

Chemists at the Australian National University (ANU) have discovered a new way to manufacture rare chemicals that occur naturally in coral, and used the method to make a powerful anti-inflammatory drug.

Professor Michael Sherburn said the Canberra-based group's findings could lead to cheaper and easier production of medical compounds, offering new hope for people requiring treatment for cancer and malaria.

"What we're hoping is a number of people will pick up these ideas we're using for more efficient chemical synthesis and apply them more generally," he said.

"Hopefully we will eventually get to the point where we can make any structure at will in a very cost-efficient, very labour-efficient manner with a minimum impact on the environment."

Professor Sherburn said the process to clip small molecules together could have many applications.

"Generally speaking if you want to make these molecules it's very time consuming," he said.

"It is really labour-intensive, takes lots of money, lots of time and it's really, really challenging too.

"So what we found out is how to do this in a really short way, in a really smart way, in a really efficient way."

The group made pseudopterosin during the trial, an anti-inflammatory drug made from compounds that are currently only available in tiny quantities extracted from fan coral found in the Bahamas.