After nearly 70 years of mystery, scientists have finally validated an old hypothesis regarding vitamin B1, or ‘thiamine,’ by stabilizing a reactive molecule in water, opening the door to more sustainable and efficient ways of making pharmaceuticals.
Specifically, they have managed to stabilize a carbene, a type of carbon atom with only six valence electrons, which makes it unstable and highly reactive, decomposing instantly in water, thus confirming an old hypothesis that thiamine may form a carbene-like structure in our cells to carry out body’s vital reactions, according to a Phys.org report on April 21.
Proving Breslow’s vitamin B1 theory
For the first time ever, they generated a stable carbene in water, as well as isolated it, sealed it in a tube, a observed it remain intact for months, proving that Ronald Breslow, a Columbia University chemist who proposed in 1958 that vitamin B1 could convert into a carbene to drive biochemical transformations in the body.
However, carbenes were so unstable, particularly in water, that no one could prove they actually existed in a biological setting.
Commenting on the development, Vincent Lavallo, a professor of chemistry at UC Riverside and corresponding author of the study who has spent two decades designing carbenes, explained:
“This is the first time anyone has been able to observe a stable carbene in water. (…) People thought this was a crazy idea. But it turns out, Breslow was right.”
Lavallo’s team has achieved this by wrapping the carbene in a “suit of armor” – a molecule synthesized in the laboratory that shields the reactive center from water and other molecules, resulting in a stable structure to be studied with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography, and proving carbenes can exist in water.
According to Varun Raviprolu, who completed the research as a graduate student at UCR, currently a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA:
“We were making these reactive molecules to explore their chemistry, not chasing a historical theory. (…) But it turns out our work ended up confirming exactly what Breslow proposed all those years ago.”
Implications in the pharmaceutical industry
In terms of practical implications, the new method of carbene stabilization in water could have many.
Notably, carbenes are often used as ‘ligands’ or support structures in metal-based catalysts when producing pharmaceuticals, fuels, and other materials, most often relying on toxic organic solvents, and this breakthrough could help make those reactions cleaner, cheaper, and safer.
Pre Raviprolu:
“Water is the ideal solvent—it’s abundant, non-toxic, and environmentally friendly. (…) If we can get these powerful catalysts to work in water, that’s a big step toward greener chemistry.”
Meanwhile, other interesting advancements in science include turning light into both a solid and a fluid, or a strange material called a ‘supersolid,’ developing sensors to help robots feel materials, tracing the domestic cat origins to Tunisia, creating a self-healing bendable lithium battery, and more.
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