Picric acid converted it to acetylsalicylic acid, i.e., aspirin, to keep it from the Allies. See Great Phenol Plot. At the time, phenol was obtained from coal as a co-product of coke ovens and the manufacture of gas for gas lighting. Laclede Gas reports being asked to expand production of phenol (and toluene) to support the war effort. Both Monsanto and Dow Chemical undertook manufacture of synthetic phenol in 1915. Dow was the leading producer. Dow describes picric acid as “the main battlefield explosive used by the French. Large amounts [of phenol] also went to Japan, where it was made into picric
Mycophenolic acid Mycophenolic acid Mycophenolic acid, also called mycophenolate, is an immunosuppressant drug used to prevent rejection in organ transplantation. It was initially marketed as the prodrug mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) to improve oral bioavailability. More recently, the salt mycophenolate sodium has also been introduced. Mycophenolate mofetil is marketed under the trade name CellCept and mycophenolate sodium as Myfortic. Discovered by an Italian medical scientist Bartolomeo Gosio in 1893, mycophenolic acid was the first antibiotic to be synthesised in pure and crystalline form. But its medical application was forgotten until two American scientists C.L. Alsberg and O.M. Black resynthesised it in 1912, and