The indolophenanthridines calothrixin A (1) and calothrixin B (2) continue to attract scientific interest due to their potent biological activities against cancer cell lines and P. falciparum. [1] A number of different strategies have been reported in the construction of the novel pentacyclic system. [2] The shortest route to date is that reported by Kelly, [2a] while the best overall yields obtained so far was the synthesis reported by our group in 2002. [2b] [c] Although all the ...
