Aspidophytine is an

indole Indole is an aromatic heterocyclic organic compound with the formula C8 H7 N. It has a bicyclic structure, consisting of a six-membered benzene ring fused to a five-membered pyrrole ring. Indole is widely distributed in the natural environmen ...

alkaloid Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Some synthetic compounds of similar ...

that has attracted a lot of attention from synthetic chemists.''"A Concise Asymmetric Total Synthesis of Aspidophytine" ''Nicolaou, K. C., Dalby, S. M., Majumder, U. ''J. Am. Chem. Soc.'' 2008, ''130(45)'', 14942–14943 () An extract of the cockroach plant, aspidophytine is an

insecticidal Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...

substance particularly effective against

cockroach Cockroaches (or roaches) are a paraphyletic group of insects belonging to Blattodea, containing all members of the group except termites. About 30 cockroach species out of 4,600 are associated with human habitats. Some species are well-known as ...

es. It is one of the two components of the

dimer Dimer may refer to: * Dimer (chemistry), a chemical structure formed from two similar sub-units ** Protein dimer, a protein quaternary structure ** d-dimer * Dimer model, an item in statistical mechanics, based on ''domino tiling'' * Julius Dimer ( ...

haplophytine.Column: Totally Synthetic
by Paul Docherty, at the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

; published October 9, 2009; retrieved October 3, 2014 In his suicide note, Harvard doctoral student

Jason Altom Jason Altom (6 October 1971 – 15 August 1998) was an American PhD student working in the research group of Nobel laureate Elias James Corey at Harvard University. He killed himself by taking potassium cyanide in 1998, citing in his suicide note ...

mentioned his stress in attempting to devise a synthetic pathway for the aspidophytine sub-unit of haplophytine as a contributing factor to his psychological breakdown.Lethal Chemistry at Harvard
by Stephen S> Hall, in ''

the New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''; published November 29, 1998; retrieved October 3, 2014

References

Tryptamine alkaloids Alkaloids found in Apocynaceae Lactones Catechol ethers Indolizidines Phenethylamine alkaloids {{alkaloid-stub