A tool developed by
University of Delaware chemist Joseph Fox was among the scientific
advances cited by the Nobel Committee for Chemistry as it announced its
2022 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry on Wednesday, Oct. 5.
The prizes were awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry
Sharpless for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal
chemistry — closely related areas that involve making new molecules,
linking them and/or introducing them into biological environments
without harming the biological process inherent within them.
This kind of chemical craftsmanship is hard to imagine, let alone explain to those outside the field.
But Fox’s work was discussed in the Nobel committee’s scientific background press release,
explaining the foundational chemistry behind the prizes, specifically
his group’s 2008 development of a chemical reaction called tetrazine
ligation.
Tetrazine ligation is used to produce fast, selective chemical
reactions within biological environments — inside a living cell, for
example.
“Being able to build and assemble things on-site — where you want it,
inside a living system, as opposed to building them in a flask — that’s
where tetrazine ligation is really special,” said Fox, professor of
chemistry and director of the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence
on Molecular Discovery, which gets funding from the National Institutes
of Health. “It’s fast and it allows you to do this under the specialized
conditions biology needs.”
The reaction can be used in all kinds of applications, connecting
molecules, adding tags for imaging of cells, drug discovery, targeted
drug delivery, diagnostics, microscopy, engineering and materials
science.
“It can be used on almost anything and it’s a reaction that always
works — and it works under the most insane conditions,” Fox said. “It’s
always shocking the types of things you can do with this reaction.”
