

Chemists Uncover Powerful New Click Chemistry Reactivity - andrewl
http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2014/20140813sharpless.html

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jamesash
Pretty breathless PR piece from Scripps that actually doesn't go into any
notable detail on the chemical reaction, hits all the buzzwords (green, click,
yada yada) and manages to spell sulfur "sulfer" and hydrolyze "hydrolize".
(Here's an actually awesome recent piece of Scripps
science)[[http://openflask.blogspot.com/2013/08/ingenol-behind-
scenes....](http://openflask.blogspot.com/2013/08/ingenol-behind-
scenes.html)].

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dnautics
Click chemistry despite its cool sounding name isn't very useful because the
clickable parts that are left behind in the final structure are not
necessarily themselves useful for other things..m in biology this can often
mean "they get in the way" except for a subset of problems like payload
attachment or imaging agent/analytical agent attachment. Mostly click
chemistry gets used to make other biological discovery marginally easier.

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dnautics
With that said, i Just read the Lowe review and I think the polymer
application is exciting.

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lancerpickens
Time will tell. Major downside of the CuAAC click reaction is using azides,
which are hella dangerous.

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dnautics
Alkyl azides are not very dangerous.

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dbcooper
Derek Lowe covered this here:

[http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/08/13/sulfates_and...](http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2014/08/13/sulfates_and_what_they_can_make.php)

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cageface
I was in Professor Sharpless' organic synthesis class at Scripps many many
years ago. Very nice guy and extremely bright. I'm not surprised he's pushing
the envelope again.

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hga
Yeah, Professor Sharpless. I took Organic II from him, he was indeed "very
nice and extremely bright" (I had no doubt he'd get a Nobel in due course, as
he did), and I too am not surprised. Here's Wikipedia on Click chemistry,
which says he coined the phrase:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_chemistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_chemistry)

Anecdote: he dipped some absorbent paper in safrole and had us pass them
around and smell them, and in the middle of this said something to the effect,
"Oh, BTW, this is officially carcinogenic, but it's not truly dangerous, I
wouldn't have you smelling it if it was". As a former fan of root beer before
the FDA forced it's removal I appreciated that. As the son of a Cajun mother
I'm really glad filé powder contains doesn't contain it, banning it would be
even more criminal.

