Simple, reliable reactions that 'click' molecules together garner chemistry Nobel

A new, convenient type of chemistry developed over the past two decades has been honored with this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry. Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford University, Morten Meldal of the University of Copenhagen, and Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, share the award for “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry,” The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced at a press conference this morning . Sharpless “started the ball rolling. Around the year 2000, he coined the concept of click chemistry, which is a form of simple and reliable chemistry, where reactions occur quickly and unwanted by-products are avoided,” the academy says. Later, Meldal and Sharpless, independently of each other, discovered “what is now the crown jewel of click chemistry: the copper catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition. This is an elegant and efficient chemical reaction that is now in widespread use.” “Bertozzi took click chemistry to a new level,” the academy says. “To map important but elusive biomolecules on the surface of cells—glycans—she developed click reactions that work inside living organisms. Her bioorthogonal reactions take place without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell.” Click chemistry is now used around the world to study cells and biological processes, and bioorthogonal reactions have helped improved the targeting of cancer drugs now in clinical tr...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news