From Decades to Minutes: Steps Toward the Structure of Strychnine 1910-1948 and the Application of Today's Technology.

Abstract

Between 1910 and 1947, Robert Robinson (primarily), among others, published numerous proposed structures for strychnine. Robinson published 17 of his strychnine papers with his doctoral advisor William Henry Perkin, Jr., though all but two appeared after Robinson had taken his first permanent academic position. This Essay analyzes 20 key publications leading up to Robinson's (correct, then incorrect, then correct again though not definitively) proposal and Woodward's assignment of the actual structure of strychnine. We subjected the assignment of the strychnine structure to a modern computational quantum chemistry workflow. By computing, with density functional theory, 1 H and 13 C NMR chemical shifts for the literature-proposed strychnine structures, we were able to rule out most incorrect structures. 13 C NMR predictions were better at this, but 1 H NMR chemical shifts were helpful. A comparison is made between the consequences of publishing erroneous ideas in the first half of the 20th century and doing so in the 21st century.