Into Unscientific

"Pheromones?"

In the office.

Seeing Tian Liangwei with a surprised face, Xu Yun nodded affirmatively:

"Yes, I think the entry point of the fourth-generation imidacloprid is pheromone."

Tian Liangwei gently pushed his glasses, his expression a little dignified and confused:

"Tell me in detail? Xiao Xu, don't tell me. The method you said is to simply mix the pheromone and imidacloprid in terms of ingredients-I can buy you two sticky boards for Taobao coat moth pheromone for ten yuan. Ten pieces back."

Pheromones, also known as pheromones.

Refers to substances that are secreted by an individual and perceived by other individuals of the same species through the olfactory organs, causing the latter to exhibit certain changes in behavior, emotion, psychological or physiological mechanisms.

For example, human adults emit pheromones, and there is even a perfume called pheromones for sale.

At present, there is still controversy in the scientific community about the specific composition of human pheromones, but the substances with higher acceptance are male androgenone and female estradienol.

The most abundant pheromones are in the armpits and crotch. You can smell the smell of these two places. Is it different from the smell of other parts of the body?

When Xu Yun was in high school, a friend always said that there was a girl in the class who smelled good. Out of curiosity, Xu Yun tried to take a breath while queuing up for exercises during recess.

Good guy, a touch of body odor.

This is the difference in pheromone feedback. People who like it especially like it, and people who don't feel it hate it.

So in a sense, "Your armpit smells so good" is actually a love sentence.

In the field of insect pests, the use of insect pheromones is very wide.

The advantage of pheromone is that it is highly targeted, does not harm natural enemies, and has no risk of pesticide residues. The disadvantage is that it is highly targeted and is ineffective against other pests, and it is only effective for adults and not for larvae.

Therefore, pheromones currently have relatively high limitations and can be regarded as an auxiliary means.

That is to use this thing to attract the bugs, and then trap them with sticky boards or boxes before proceeding to the next step.

What is more advanced is to mix pheromone and biological poison together, mix them together like noodles, and then attract the target to eat the poison

Facing Tian Liangwei's concerns, Xu Yun first poured him a cup of tea, and then said:

"Teacher, I understand what you mean, don't worry, I'm not taking advantage of that kind of conceptual loophole."

Then he took out a pen and paper from his body, and explained while writing:

"My idea is, can some kind of synthetic technology be used to combine pheromone and imidacloprid into a new powerful poison?

For example, it not only has the attraction function of pheromone, but also has the multi-generation transmission effect of imidacloprid? That is, the pheromone will diffuse with the diffusion of imidacloprid? "

Looking at the few lines written by Xu Yun on the paper, Tian Liangwei vaguely understood:

"Synthesis of new poisons? I seem to understand what you mean.

Ordinary hybrid drugs use pheromone to attract the target, let it swallow the poison and spread the infection, but because they don't carry pheromone, the effect curve of multiple rounds of transmission is generally not very ideal.

And Xiao Xu, your idea is to let the poison also have the effect of pheromone. After the target leaves the bait, it will become a new bait that emits pheromone, and it can even be passed on for multiple generations? "

Xu Yun nodded, affirming:

"That's right, this is what I think is the direction of the fourth or even fifth generation imidacloprid."

Tian Liangwei pursed his lips and thought carefully, the expression on his face was still a little pessimistic:

"It seems to be possible in theory, but technically there are many problems to be solved.

First of all, the target is single. The pheromone of an insect can only be effective on the adults of this species. For example, the moth sticky board I mentioned earlier can only catch moths, and other flies and mosquitoes cannot catch them at all.

The second is that the synthesis needs to break through the corresponding information barriers, which is really too difficult, otherwise those well-known companies or laboratories would have already produced it. "

While talking, Tian Liangwei couldn't help shaking his head.

As he said, almost all pheromone poisons are produced through physical hybridization.

This production method cannot be said that the production companies are stupid, but because they cannot synthesize pheromones and biological poisons into a brand new substance.

As an authoritative expert in domestic bio-hospitals, Tian Liangwei naturally knows how difficult it is to synthesize pheromones and biotoxins. Currently, companies such as Bayer, Pfizer, Roche, and Novartis are conducting research in this direction.

This kind of technological breakthrough will not make much waves for the scientific community, not to mention the Nobel Prize, even the Califf Award or the Lasker Award, but the market behind it is not a small number.

Of course.

Most of the binding targets in these laboratories are not imidacloprid, but the third-generation dinotefuran.

After all, in those cutting-edge laboratories, imidacloprid and dinotefuran are like Aoi compared to Mr. Mikami, which does not belong to the concept of an era.

Looking at Tian Liangwei, who was thinking of some bad memories, Xu Yun seemed very calm. He wrote another line on the paper:

"Teacher, look at this."

Tian Liangwei looked at the paper subconsciously, and after a while, he hesitated and said:

"Is this... methylated alkanes?"

Xu Yun nodded, and drew a horizontal line in the middle of one of the CH3, which means erasing it.

Tian Liangwei let out a light sigh:

"One-chiral methyl?"

Xu Yun continued to write a line:

CH3(CH2)2CH=CHCH=CH(CH2)8CH3, [Ru(p-cymene)_2Cl_2]_2, (HCHO)n, ZnBr_2, CH_3COON, DCE(CH2CLCH2CL), and a pyridine functional group.

"Teacher, do you think this reaction can be successful?"

Looking at the line written by Xu Yun, Tian Liangwei was taken aback for a moment, then took the pen and quickly calculated it on the paper and in his heart:

"Removal of a CH3C-H bond cyclization. Direct cleavage of the substrate carbon-hydrogen bond by transition metal catalysis?

Directing group formation intermediate C-M Huh? It seems that it can really form selective hydroxymethylation with pyridine? "

well known.

The hydroxymethylation functional group widely exists in drugs and small biologically active molecules, and it undergoes nucleophilic addition to aldehydes to obtain corresponding alcohols, ethers or esters.

If the CH3 in the upper right corner of the pheromone alkane is removed, it can theoretically form a compound with pyridine under the catalysis of ruthenium.

Of course.

This is only a deduced possibility, and the operation has extremely high uncertainty.

Looking at the teacher with a gradually dignified expression, Xu Yun continued:

"As for your first point, it is true that pheromones have a disadvantage.

The target of a kind of pheromone is always only one kind of creature. Moths are moths, and fruit flies are fruit flies. They cannot communicate with each other. No one can change this.

So why don't we just do a targeted screening? "

"Targeted screening?"

Tian Liangwei raised his eyelids, looked at Xu Yun and said:

"And what does that mean?"

"Just study one direction, don't care about others."

Xu Yun spread his hands towards his teacher and said with a smile:

"The entire field of biotoxins is so big, we don't need to cover it all, so why don't we choose a pest that is more harmful and produce a specific insecticide specifically for it?"

"It is true that there are many pests in agriculture. If you kill the needleworm, you will get the lamp moth, and if you kill the lamp moth, you will have cotton bolls. If you don't eliminate them all, it is difficult for agricultural products to completely get rid of pests and diseases. But apart from agriculture, in our daily life There are also many pests, and killing one of these pests will solve a big problem, and the cost performance is much higher than that of agriculture."

"Once this new compound can be produced, a certain pest may be eliminated and become a protected animal, the kind that the next generation can only see in zoos."

"for example."

"cockroach!"