Tamiflu Ingredient in Pine Needles, UMaine Researchers Find
Wednesday’s Portland Press Herald includes a story about research by UMaine chemistry professors Barbara Cole and Ray Fort, along with graduate student Gedivinne Nelmini and other collaborators. They have found ways to extract shikimic acid from pine needles. That acid is a primary ingredient in the flu medicine Tamiflu. It’s rare and most of the commercially available shikimic acid comes from a tree that grows in remote northwest China.