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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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 »