This latest NPR Highlight, by Steven Weinreb from Pennsylvania State University in the US, focuses on some recent approaches to the total synthesis of imidazole-containing alkaloids which have been isolated from marine sponges. 

These compounds, the first of which was discovered in 1971, range from relatively simple compounds to complex metabolites and they have gained increasing interest from synthetic chemists in recent times. In this review Weinreb describes target molecules, such as ageladine A and the phakellins, which exemplify the key strategies that have been employed in the synthesis of imidazole systems.