"precursor compounds" refers to substances that act as building blocks or starting materials for creating or producing other substances.
Full definition
In this collaboration, Dickerson designed the synthesis of drugs from
precursor compounds prior to scheduling, when they are not available from research supply companies.
They replaced particular carbon atoms in the hexagonal lattice with boron and nitrogen atoms using surface chemistry, by placing suitable
organic precursor compounds on a gold surface.
For most reactions to occur,
precursor compounds must mingle.
In Drosophila sechellia, scientists found much lower levels of
the precursor compound needed for dopamine biosynthesis than was found in other Drosophila species.
In diabetes patients, rogue CD8 T cells attack a protein on beta cells called proinsulin,
a precursor compound that becomes insulin after modification.
At present, chemists derive
these precursor compounds from a benzene «feedstock».
This involves heating a sample of
a precursor compound at several hundred °C elsius for only a few milliseconds in a vacuum chamber.