Prof. Dirk Trauner, New York University , USA

Making Molecules to Modulate Neural Systems

Tetrodotoxin is an indispensable probe in neuroscience, a biosynthetic and ecological enigma, and one of the most celebrated targets of synthetic chemistry. I will present a stereoselective synthesis of TTX that proceeds in 21 steps and can deliver the molecule, and derivatives thereof, on an unprecedented scale. In addition, I will discuss a new class of compounds that enable optical control of synaptic function. These photoactivatable PROTACs (“PHOTACs”) could found widespread use in memory research.