Sir

As you point out in your News story 'Chemists synthesize a natural-born killer' (Nature 448, 630–631; doi:10.1038/448630a 2007), some researchers question the merits of organic synthesis, whereby chemists seek to recreate a synthetic version of a natural product. In its defence, I want to remind readers that when Elias James Corey received a Nobel prize in 1990 for the development of organic synthesis, the press release stated: “To perform the total syntheses successfully, Corey was also obliged to develop some fifty entirely new or considerably improved synthesis reactions or reagents…which…have become commonplace in the synthesizing laboratory.”

Such newly discovered reactions and reagents are routinely used in the discovery of drug candidates. The cost of pharmaceuticals is, to some extent, directly related to the ease or complexity of their synthesis, and there are still many drugs in the pipeline whose development has been hindered by problems encountered during their manufacture. This underlines the point that the science of organic synthesis is still a worthy cause to be pursued.