Click chemistry (CuAAC)
Química click (cicloadición azida-alquino catalizada por cobre)
- Date
- 2001-2002 · confidence high
- Place
- Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California; University of Southern Denmark, Odense (Meldal)
- Credited to
- K. Barry Sharpless (concept, 2001); Morten Meldal and Sharpless-Fokin (CuAAC, 2002); Carolyn Bertozzi (bioorthogonal chemistry)
- People
- 👤 Hartmuth C. Kolb1964–👤 Karl Barry Sharpless1941–👤 M. G. Finn1958–
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Modular, fast, selective reactions that join molecular building blocks under mild conditions, such as the azide-alkyne cycloaddition; Bertozzi takes it copper-free into living cells (bioorthogonal chemistry).
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 (Sharpless, Meldal, Bertozzi). Meldal and Sharpless-Fokin independently discovered CuAAC in 2002.
What it led to
- Bioconjugation and drug conjugates
- Functional materials
- Chemistry inside living organisms
Built on
- Huisgen cycloaddition (1960s)
- copper catalysis
Made possible
- antibody-drug conjugates
- in vivo glycan labelling