How Rat Poison Helps Chemists Win Nobel Prizes

Strychnine is so difficult to make in a lab that chemists, including Nobel winners, have long competed to synthesize it more efficiently.

By Joshua Learn
Oct 27, 2021 10:30 PM
rat poison
(Credit: Shutterstock/Abigail Malate/Inside Science)

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(Inside Science) —  Strychnine is a substance commonly deployed to keep rodents away from your kitchen.

But a whole line of Nobel Prize winners -- this year's included -- care little about strychnine's use as rat poison. They are more focused on the strychnine molecule's complex structure.

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