On April 22nd, 2019, Prof. Karl Barry Sharpless, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, attended the 121st Master Distinguished Lecture and delivered a lecture titled The Applications of SuFEx Click Chemistry in Biology.

The Sharpless Lab pursues useful new reactivity and general methods for selectively controlling chemical reactions. The essence of synthetic chemistry is the synthesis of useful molecules. Prof. Sharpless introduced three most representative reactions of click chemistry, including CuAAC, SuFEX and a new reaction recently discovered in Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science. Then he introduced the applications of S-F functional groups and proteins in highly regio-selective synthesis. In the end, he concluded thar “reactivity is the core of synthetic chemistry”.

【Introduction】

Prof. Karl Barry Sharpless, Academician of the American Academy of Science (AAS) and American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), was born April 28th, 1941 in Philadelphia, USA. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1963 and obtained his PhD degree from Stanford University in 1968. After postdoctoral work at Stanford University and Harvard University, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1970. In 1990 he became W.M. Keck Professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. 

Sharpless is the founder of asymmetric catalysis and click chemistry and has received many important scientific awards in his academic career, including ACS Arthur C. Cope Award(1992), Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry(2001), Wolf Prize in Chemistry(2001), Nobel Prize in Chemistry(2001) and Priestley Award(2001).

Author: Jiajia DONG

Translator: Chenyun SUN