Congratulations to Professor Robin Leatherbarrow and Dr Ed Tate for their article which is now one of the most cited articles in OBC

Professor Robin Leatherbarrow & Dr Ed Tate's paper Chemical and biomimetic total syntheses of natural and engineered MCoTI cyclotides is now one of the most cited papers in the area of natural products since Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry was first published 10 years ago.

The research reported in the paper was mainly the work of a PhD student, Panumart (Took) Thongyoo, jointly supervised by Dr Tate and Professor Leatherbarrow, who is now a lecturer at Thammasat University in Thailand. It details the first total syntheses of the complex knotted microprotein natural products MCoTI-I and II using both 'thia-zip' native chemical ligation and a biomimetic strategy featuring chemoenzymatic cyclisation by an immobilised protease - driving the protease reaction in reverse to synthesise a new peptide bond. Engineered MCoTI analogues were also found to be selective inhibitors of foot-and-mouth-disease virus (FMDV) 3C protease, the first reported peptide-based inhibitor of this important viral enzyme.