Scientists from ZIOC have proposed new quantitative indicators for assessing the safety of chemical reactions

The significant spread of catalytic transformations and the active development of the pharmaceutical industry in recent decades have raised great concerns due to the possible negative effects of such processes on humans and the environment. Despite the intensive work of scientists on the development of criteria for the effectiveness and safety of chemical reactions, such as E-factor and atom-economy, a reliable comprehensive assessment of the toxic potential of a chemical transformation still remains an unattainable task due to the extreme complexity of the numerous processes that occur during the interaction of chemicals with living organisms and their immediate environment.

Researchers of the Laboratory of Metal Complex and Nanoscale Catalysts of the Zelinsky Institute have been actively working in recent years to study the toxicity and biological activity of various catalytic systems. In one of their latest works, scientists proposed new quantitative indicators of chemical reactions — "cytotoxicity potentials", with the help of which it is possible to preliminarily assess the safety of the synthetic pathway in terms of the cytotoxicity of its participants. The researchers also proposed to draw up a general scale of cytotoxicity for various routes of synthesis of a particular product, which allows choosing the least toxic route for its production. In the future, the use of bioprofiles of chemical reactions, along with other characteristics such as the presence of impurities and the biodegradability of packaging, is expected to help strengthen the environmental control of chemical production.
 

Source:

Ksenia S. Egorova, Alexandra V. Posvyatenko, Alexey S. Galushko, Valentine P. Ananikov Fast evaluation of the safety of chemical reactions using cytotoxicity potentials and bio-Strips // Chemosphere 2023, 313, 137378. DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137378.