Polyketides are natural products found in a variety of places, including bacteria, sea sponges and sediments. The compounds are often only present in tiny quantities, but they have powerful medicinal properties which the pharmaceutical industry has used to develop a wide range of medicines. Around a fifth of all pharmaceuticals are derived from polyketides. 

The research team worked on a polyketide called Bahamaolide A, which acquired its name as it originates from bacteria cultured from a marine sediment at North Cat Cay in the Bahamas. 

Using existing methods, it would normally take more than 20 different steps to construct it in a laboratory. The researchers found a new, improved way to combine the building blocks for the molecule so it could be made in just 14 steps. 

The breakthrough marks the culmination of a five-year research project led by chemists at the University of Bristol, which has finally cracked how to reconstruct in a laboratory this particularly complex molecule. 

Read the full University of Bristol news item

'Iterative synthesis of 1,3-polyboronic esters with high stereocontrol and application to the synthesis of bahamaolide A' by Sheenagh G. Aiken et al. in Nature Chemistry