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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dr. Paul: Views Through the Piperidine Ring

Department of Pharmacology; University of Michigan; Ann Arbor, Michigan; efdabcde{at}umich.edu

To the Editor:

Stanley et al.1 have written an excellent and thorough tribute to Dr. Paul A. J. Janssen. Dr. Janssen’s significant contributions to humanity, anesthesiologists, and their patients are impressive. The many details of his remarkable life with multiple interests are especially interesting. I was unaware that Dr. Janssen spent 6 months in 1948 in the United States and attended a series of lectures given by Carl Pfeiffer, who was Head of Pharmacology at the University of Illinois in Chicago. At that time, I was in medical school at the same university but had no idea that such a future famous man and I were attending the same pharmacology lectures. Pfeiffer’s lectures were accompanied by many chemical formulae and structure-activity relationships. Dr. Janssen must have been influenced by these lectures as were the graduate and medical students in attendance. It is in that spirit I have separated the chemical structures of meperidine and fentanyl and then superimposed meperidine/fentanyl, and fentanyl/morphine. It may help the reader appreciate the elegant chemical relationships of fentanyl and other "tanils" to meperidine as well as to morphine, as seen through the piperidine rings (Figs. 1–3).

View larger version (47K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Meperidine/fentanyl.

View larger version (58K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 2. Meperidine/fentanyl superimposed.

View larger version (90K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 3. Fentanyl/morphine superimposed.

1. Stanley TH, Egan TD, Van Aken H. A tribute to Dr. Paul A.J. Janssen: entrepreneur extraordinaire, innovative Scientist, and significant contributor to anesthesiology. Anesth Analg 2008;106:451–62[Abstract/Free Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				T. H. Stanley Dr. Paul: Views Through the Piperidine Ring Anesth. Analg., August 1, 2008; 107(2): 724 - 724. [Full Text] [PDF]

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