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Medicinal chemistry

New lead for pain treatment

Nature volume 473, pages 458–459 (2011)Cite this article

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The synthesis of conolidine, a scarce, naturally occurring compound, has enabled the first studies of its pharmacological properties to be carried out. Excitingly, conolidine is a painkiller that seems to have an unusual mechanism of action.

Some of the most powerful painkillers, such as morphine, hydrocodone and oxycodone, belong to the opioid family of analgesics. Unfortunately, prolonged exposure to these analgesics can cause several adverse side effects, including physical and psychological addiction. As a result, there is a continued effort to identify painkillers that have different biological mechanisms from opioids and that elicit fewer side effects. With this in mind, a team of chemists, led by Glenn Micalizio, has joined forces with a group of neuroscientists, headed by Laura Bohn, to synthesize and study the analgesic properties of a rare, naturally occurring compound called conolidine. Their promising findings, reported in Nature Chemistry (Tarselli et al.1), might pave the way for the development of new non-opioid analgesics.

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Figure 1: Inspiration for the synthesis of conolidine.

References

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  1. Sarah E. Reisman is in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.,

    Sarah E. Reisman

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  1. Sarah E. Reisman
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Correspondence to Sarah E. Reisman.

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Reisman, S. New lead for pain treatment. Nature 473, 458–459 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/473458a

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