The promises and perils of chemistry research

Two stories about the promise and perils of chemistry research. From a team recreating Renaissance beauty recipes in the hopes of rediscovering a 'miracle ingredient', to a researcher investigating New Zealand's deadliest synthetic cannabinoid.

Natural products are the origin of many of today's beauty products and medicines, with plant, mineral and animal product extracts analysed and then often re-made, or improved upon, in the lab.

Today we have one story about new discoveries from old recipes, and another about what can happen when this kind of chemistry goes wrong.

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The Beautiful Chemistry Project

When art historian Associate Professor Erin Griffey was invited to give a public talk on her research into Renaissance beauty culture, she thought some show and tell would be the way to go. Linking up with some of her University of Auckland colleagues in the chemistry department she pulled out a few old recipes and they started making a batch of 15th-century beauty products.

That was the birth of the Beautiful Chemistry Project - an investigation into Renaissance beauty recipes to discover the secrets they might hold.

Griffey's extensive research and cataloguing of Renaissance texts on the subject has provided a database of thousands of beauty recipes, including ingredients from the mundane, to the bizarre and sometimes even dangerous.

Since Senior Research Fellow Dr Michel Nieuwoudt got on board she has helped to support summer students in their investigations of some of the 'stickier' recipes. Those that, according to Erin's database, resurfaced numerous times across the decades and in different countries.

Using chemical and functional analysis the team are figuring out how these recipes work, and if there are compounds in these old beauty products that have been overlooked by today's cosmetics.

Investigating the dangers of AMB-FUBINACA

Between 2017 and 2019, the synthetic cannabinoid AMB-FUBINACA was Aotearoa New Zealand's deadliest illicit drug.

Across those two years, it is thought to be related to at least 58 deaths, though may have contributed to more than 70.

Cannabinoids are compounds found in the cannabis plant that are able to activate cannabinoid or CB receptors in our bodies. This is because we have our own endocannabinoid system - cannabinoids we make ourselves that bind to these receptors…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details