Molecule of the Day will not be seen as scheduled this Saturday, May 6th due to the author’s heartbreaking failure to synthesize soap scum from bar soap and epsom salts, leaving me with nothing to report today. (Nice way to kill an hour and dirty up your kitchen, though). Plus, I have a pound (454g) of epsom salts. What do I do with this? Wait until I’m 80, then take baths in it?

On a sadder note, two days ago was the anniversary of the Kent State Shootings (Wikipedia, Google News), and 8-9 days from now is the anniversary of the Jackson State Shootings (Wikipedia, Google News - not much there for another week or so, of course). We hear less and less about these every year.

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So, yesterday was Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate, or SDS. Today is the carboxylic acid analogue, or lauric acid. This is just a twelve-carbon, aliphatic, unsaturated carboxylic acid. One big difference between it and SDS is that it can form an insoluble complex with divalent metal ions like magnesium and calcium. This is, of course, soap scum. Follow that link! If you are one of those unfortunate souls who has soft water, you can make your own soap scum at home.

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First in the series on soaps and detergents is sodium dodecyl sulfate - or SDS. This is one of the first molecules we’ve talked about where the structure is pretty intuitive from the name. “Sodium,” obviously, implies that there is a sodium hanging around. “Dodecyl,” if you remember your Greek prefixes, means 12. Here, this means a twelve-atom chain of carbons. Finally, the “sulfate” here means that there is a sulfate group attached to the molecule. The structure:

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Yesterday, we started in on Tamiflu. From the previous article:

A lot of people have been interested in it because it’s likely to be helpful against the “bird flu” strain of the H5N1 influenza subtype. Specifically, the concern is that bird flu might mutate into a form that is transmissible between humans. Today, some humans have gotten it - however, we don’t know of anyone who got it from a human - it’s occurred only in humans who work closely with birds.

Today, we’ll talk about its biochemistry. Back to the structure:

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Here is a topical one, Tamiflu. A lot of people are interested in it because it’s likely to be helpful against the “bird flu” strain of the H5N1 influenza subtype. Specifically, the concern is that bird flu might mutate into a form that is transmissible between humans. Today, some humans have gotten it - however, we don’t know of anyone who got it from a human - it’s occurred only in humans who work closely with birds.

I’m covering the drug in two parts. Today, we’re talking about the synthesis and precursors. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how it works biochemically as an antiviral drug. Let’s get straight to the structure:

Posted in Drugs, Biology, Medicine, Perfumey, Origin of Life | 2 Comments »