Annual report 1986

This report covers research achievements of the Laboratory during 1986. A method has been developed for the separation of ultra-trace amounts of lead from gram amounts of elements such as bismuth, tin, indium, and cadmium by cationexchange chromatography. An improved procedure for separating indium-111 from cyclotron irradiated silver targets, using cation exchange chromatography and a low crosslinked resin, provides material of superior purity for blood platelet studies. The discovery of efficient synthetic routes to cyclopentadiene complexes of ruthenium and osmium provides scope for possible commercial exploitation, and the use of ruthenium metallo cyclopentatriene intermediate in the conversion of acetylenes and alkyl-cyanides into substituted pyridines holds promise for the preparation of a variety of industrially useful chemicals. The incorporation of 180 labelled precursors into a group of structurally related mycotoxins, citreoviridin, asteltoxin, and aurovertin B, was studied with the aid of isotope shift effects upon 13 C NMR, and has contributed to mechanistic and stereochemical knowledge about the biogenesis of these important metabolites