Conclusion A Journey in the Future of Total Synthesis

The future of total synthesis is written in our laboratory notebooks. It will not only be conditioned by new synthetic achievements and new methodologies and technologies improving the efficacy of experiments but also by their applications to answer questions from new horizons. All of us will agree, as it was said by others, that total synthesis is marked by beauty and it has sometimes been compared with art. Not so many fields can respond to such criteria, and it is due to the free creativity we are able to exert. In theory, total synthesis could provide any compound, from the simplest to the most complex ones. But can we provide enough material for deepened studies in other research fields [52] Indeed, our products, once achieved, are not to be stored indefinitely in tiny flasks. They should lead to new projects, new questions, and new answers. 

Bruneton, Pharmacognosie, phytochimie, plantes medicinales, Tec Doc Lavoisier Paris (2009) 

Corey and X.-M. Cheng, The Logic of Chemical Synthesis, Wiley New York (1989) 

Cossy and S. Arseniyadis, Modem tools for the synthesis of complex bioactive molecules, Wiley Hoboken (2012) 

Dewick, Medicinal natural products, a biosynthetic approach, Wiley Chichester (2009) 

---