turtonCHEM


Here I hope to share with you some of the excitement of Chemistry, and provide a resource that students of all ages can use as a way to complement their studies and fuel their interest in a fascinating subject.

Please feel free to leave feedback about any of the links or resources, and provide suggestions about how this site can be improved at smithm@tmac.uk.com.

Also, please let me know if for any reason any of the links stop working.

Thursday, 20 December 2012

UK thalidomide survivors get new grant


The government announced today that a new pot of money has been put aside to help Thalidomide survivors in the UK. It is though that this will be used towards meeting their health needs into their old age, after previous grants have been used to adapt homes and fund the primary care of Thalidomide victims.

New £80 million grant for thalidomide survivors

As you may know already, the drug was dispensed as a morning sickness suppressant in the late 1950's and early 1960's before concerns were raised about an unusual spate of birth defects. Thalidomide has strong sedative properties and many women in the early weeks of pregnancy had taken it to ease their morning sickness, utterly unaware that its effect on the unborn child could be teratogenic (it interfered with embryonic development). The drug was withdrawn in 1961, but not before almost 10,000 babies were affected, often born with shortened, missing or mutated limbs, many of whom were too badly damaged to survive for long. Despite this, it took the makers of the drug over 50 years to make a formal apology.

Thalidomide maker issues apology

Research into Thalidomide and its uses continues today, and it has been proven to be effective in the treatment of certain cancers and leprosy, but the fact that it causes birth defects means that for women its use remains risky and controversial.

What happened to the Thalidomide babies?


Thalidomide has just one chiral atom and so exists as two enantiomers (see diagram above). Notice that two of the groups attached to the chiral centre are part of the same ring structure. They are classified as two different groups, since moving around from the chiral centre the order of atoms is different each way. Laboratory tests after the Thalidomide disaster showed that in some animals the 'S' enantiomer was teratogenic but the 'R' isomer was an effective sedative. It is now known that even when a stereo selective sample of Thalidomide (only one of the optical isomers) is created, enzymes in the body will convert it into a racemic mixture. The means that both enantiomers are formed in a roughly equal mix in the blood. At the time Thalidomide was dispensed as a racemic medication, but even if a drug of only the 'R' isomer had been created, the disaster would not have been averted. 

Friday, 14 December 2012

christmas warning

Now, I don't want to get technical or anything either, but alcohol isn't a solution kids. Ethanol, in its pure form, is a liquid compound. However, if we drank it like that we would most probably go blind and very quickly need another liver.

I guess the board is correct in some respects though, since the ethanol content in most alcoholic beverages varies from 4 or 5% for your typical beers, about 12% for wine, up to 40% for spirits like whiskey and brandy. And then there's absinthe, that mental people drink. The rest is made up of mainly water and assorted flavourings and other dissolved chemicals, thereby making alcoholic drinks the aforementioned 'solution'.

Thanks to Aidan Scarby for sending me the picture.