Although chemists have known about the molecule perseanol since the 1990s, no one has completed a total synthesis of the complex, polycyclic insecticide, until now. California Institute of Technology chemistry professor Sarah E. Reisman and graduate students Arthur Han and Yujia Tao constructed perseanol in just 16 steps, starting from a commercially available vinylogous ester and pulegone—a compound found in plants like catnip. The chemists’ strategy features a one-pot palladium-catalyzed cascade and carbon monoxide insertion reaction that stitches together most of perseanol’s polycyclic core (Nature 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1580-x). Learn more at cenm.ag/perseanol. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to catch all of our chemistry news videos. The following is the script for the video. We have edited the interviews within for length and clarity. Matt Davenport: In the 1990s, a team of scientists was in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, hoping to find some interesting molecules in the island’s plants. They