Atom-swapped morphine may help create safer painkillers

Morphine is one of the most famous natural products in the world and the progenitor of many semisynthetic opioids, such as heroin and oxycodone, as well as the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

Most of these derivatives were created by making changes to the functional groups on the molecule’s periphery. Researchers led by Richmond Sarpong of the University of California, Berkeley, have now shown that a strategic single-atom change to the molecular core makes a big difference in the compound’s pharmacological activity.