Chemists develop new strategy to synthesize molecule

A team of researchers led by Professor Pauline Chiu from Department of Chemistry, the University of Hong Kong, has successfully achieved a formal total synthesis of cortistatin A, a molecule which could help mitigate the growth of cancer tumours. The findings were published in Chemistry-A European Journal recently. This novel strategy of synthesizing the molecule was deemed to be "highly important" by the refereeing panel, and usually less than 10% of manuscripts receive such a positive review.