A synthetic click

Source: The post is based on an article “A synthetic click” published in The Hindu on 8^th October 2022.

Syllabus: GS 3

Relevance: benefits of click chemistry

News: The Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless. The three chemists have been awarded for ‘click chemistry’.

What is click chemistry?

Click chemistry helps getting molecules bonded together in an efficient and uncomplicated manner that wouldn’t normally bond together.

It can create molecular building blocks like Lego blocks that could hold together quickly and efficiently.

There have been many efforts in the pasts to join molecule together but those efforts were complicated and the result was expensive to be used.

Therefore, the discovery of click chemistry has made it efficient and possible to join two molecules.

What has led the discovery of click chemistry?

The discovery of the copper catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition by Meldal and Sharpless was a breakthrough moment in the click chemistry.

There were previous attempts to join azides and alkynes but they were complicated. However, copper proves to be beneficial in joining the two chemicals.

The discovery has helped chemists to link two different molecules. They just have to introduce an azide in one molecule and an alkyne in the other and they can be joined with the help of copper ions.

Bertozzi took click chemistry to a new dimension and showed that it could be used in living organisms also.

Copper is toxic to living cells but she figured out a way to produce a copper-free click reaction called the strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition. It could be used to treat tumours.