text: In 1978 by plasmadesorption the mass of the palytoxin was measured to be 2861 g/mol and that it had 8 double bonds. Because palytoxin is such a large molecule, it took some time before the complete structure (including stereochemistry) was elucidated. Uemura et al. solved its planar chemical structure first and published their results in January 1981. Shortly afterwards Moore and Bartolini solved the same structure and published their results in May 1981. Forementioned groups solved the structure independently from each other. Palytoxin's stereochemistry was solved first by Moore et al. in June 1982 and then by Uemura et al. in December in a study of four parts.
  Palytoxin carboxylic acid was synthesized in 1989 by the group of Harvard professor Yoshito Kishi. Synthesis happened in 8 parts and then the parts were joined to form the carboxylic acid. In 1994 Kishi et al. succeeded in making the actual palytoxin from this carboxylic acid. The accomplishment of palytoxin carboxylic acid synthesis was described as "the Mount Everest of organic synthesis, the largest single molecule that anyone has ever even thought about making" by Crawford in 1989.
  Direct observation of the crystal structure of palytoxin was made in 2022 using microcrystal electron diffraction and an antibody named scFv. Palytoxin is found to fold into a hairpin structure which, according to simulation, would facilitate its binding with the Na/K-ATPase.