Acylal Pesticides
Gaetan Tchamba (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Development of hybrid "multi-warhead" acylal pesticides
A one-pot, two-step synthesis method for the preparation of hybrid "multi-warhead" pesticides is curently being developed. Our approach will provide a general route to single biodegradable molecules with multiple pesticidal functional groups. In a broader context, this alpha-functionalized acylal methodology will also facilitate development of hybrid drugs, and novel small molecule chemistry. To date, we have successfully optimized the first step, which is the formation of alpha chloroacylal. Work on optimizing the second step for a variety of nucleophiles (Nu) is currently in progress. So far, successful reactions have been conducted with carboxylate, azide and thiocyanate nucleophiles.