Worldwide, the agricultural industry suffers in annual 80 billion dollars’ of loss due to nematodes. However, there has yet to be a nematocide which is both safe for the environment and humans. In pursuit of developing new pesticides to counter nematodes, we previously discovered a library of chalcone small molecules that were effective in exterminating the nematodes, and that combining the chalcones resulted in a synergistic effect. We then set out to link two different chalcones in one molecule to attain an even more potent single-treatment nematocide. We have thus developed a linear four-step synthesis that is modular and accommodating of various linkers. We have also successfully prepared a small library of linked chalcones that is currently being assessed for their nemoatocidal activity. We are currently pursuing other libraries that differ in linker length and in position of linkage. Project motivation, synthesis design, troubleshooting, our library of final compounds and some preliminary biological data will be presented.

Synthesis of linked chalcones as nematocides

2019 Spring National Meeting

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