The Pictet-Spengler reaction is used in the current industrial synthesis of rac-PZQ, and these reactions have been looked at on the Synaptic Leap here.
The PS has been used in the synthesis of PZQ, and we used it as the final step in our solid phase synthesis of PZQ, but both these syntheses were racemic.
I would like to introduce my open-source project at Stanford, GemIdent:
http://www.gemident.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GemIdent
GemIdent specializes in color image segmentation using supervised machine learning. For example, you can use it to locate and count cells in microscopic images:
A recent paper suggests that thioredoxin glutathione reductase from S. mansoni is an interesting drug target for schisto, particularly given that PZQ was inactive against this target. From a quick look at the paper it appears as though no crystal structure is available for the enzyme, but screening is required. I wonder: is there anything the community can do here as a research project in virtual screening, given the data in the paper on compounds already tested? Mat
