ScienceHub # 2: Click-chemistry
Chemist Valery Fokin in early October, predicted the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, although the applicants are not known by the laws of its conduct. However, all Russian media literally exploded with materials and interviews with Valery. We on PostNauke met him last spring, when there was still no such a rush, and now Valery is recording for us a course in new chemistry, which we plan to release in late November and early December. In October, Valery opened his laboratory of chemical synthesis and catalysis at MFTI, but in general he constantly flies from Russia to the USA, where he continues his research, so the fact that PostNauke managed to visit his lab was a great success, which we are sharing with you. We succeeded in taking pictures of the scientists who work in it, and Valeria himself, who told us about what click chemistry is, what its basic principles are, what are its prospects and who will develop this new field of knowledge. But all in order.
The history of this trend in chemistry is not so long, it begins only from 1997, when the term itself appeared, and in 2001 Barry Sharpless published the first review article on the concept of click-chemistry in a journal. Speaking about click-chemistry, Valery compares it with an ideal tool that will allow you to build new molecules from designer cubes. His favorite image is a fastex fastener on the bag. On the set, he used, for example, the bag of our operator, in which he stores cameras. This fastener also has a distinctive click sound. Such a “click” allows you to build guaranteed reactions when a set of some elements will always give the same result and is irreversible. That is, it is such a molecular designer, a set of chemical reactions, processes, in order to synthesize molecules in the most efficient way.
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Valery Fokin: “That is, the idea is that A + B gives C and nothing more. And it works always and in any conditions. The basic idea of ​​click chemistry is that if we imagine that we have two reagents, the reaction will take place always and everywhere. Accordingly, an irreversible bond will turn out, a clasp, which will allow us to connect two reactive blocks, two molecules into one or the other. And this connection is irreversible. "
Why click chemistry is needed, well, firstly, it opens up tremendous opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry, but more about that later, secondly, it allows you to better understand how molecules work to trace the fate of some compounds responsible for various diseases, there is how this happens at the molecular level. In a situation of illness, it is necessary to be at the scene of the event, where all this happens, and, accordingly, introduce tags there in order to see everything with your own eyes in the truest sense. And in this case, click-chemistry methods can be used as such a reporter, which is launched into the system.
The first thing Valery notes is that this is not pure science, not chemistry in its traditional form, but a new area at the junction of various disciplines, which will be used by biologists, chemists, and doctors. That is, again, it is a universal tool, a kind of recipe, when there is a set of reagents and instructions on how to use them in different cases and for different purposes.
VF: “In general, this area is very interdisciplinary, and the task of chemists was to make a certain set of reagents and reactions that would allow them to be used in any way, no matter in which area. People do not have to be chemists to use the results of this science. It's like a computer, like a black box in which many processes occur, but users only get the end result. ”
That is why the future chemist is also such a universal soldier who has basic knowledge in chemistry, biology and medicine. If we talk about the latter, then it opens up ample opportunities. This is what Valery calls the “pharmacy of the future”, when medicine will become not just personalized, but click-chemistry methods will allow collecting medicines directly in a pharmacy for different people and different diseases. And here, of course, we need both new pharmacists and doctors who will work directly with the patient, starting from the methods of diagnosis and ending with specific recipes. That is, click chemists will develop and search for those building blocks and blocks from which a new drug will be assembled.
Whether it is necessary and possible to actually become a click chemist is a question. Because it is rather a philosophy, a definite approach that can be used by “classical” chemists. Therefore, it is rather necessary to follow the traditional way of learning - through the chemistry department and research specifically in the field of chemistry, but with a focus on catalysis, on those reactions that may be useful in the context of click chemistry. That is, it is important for chemists of the future to understand how to properly use a tool called click-chemistry. At the same time, Valery, on the basis of his laboratory, is going to launch a special course focused on interdisciplinarity at the Physical and Technical Institute, noting that earlier there were no such initiatives in Russia.
VF: “The special training of these people should cover just a few disciplines - they need to know the minimum amount of chemical science, of course, to understand and imagine what organic synthesis represents in its simplest manifestations. Must know medical chemistry at the level of what they want to get. If before there were always semi-empirical studies - chemists made compounds, biologists tested them, then doctors tested them on organisms and used them in clinical trials, now interactions occur between all involved scientists who must orient themselves quite well in chemistry, biology, medicine, without being deeply trained specialists in each of the areas. "
To say exactly how the methods of click-chemistry will be used in the future is very difficult. Perhaps it will lead to new pharmacies, where, thanks to personalized medicine, medicines will be collected individually from various components. It can also bear fruit in the field of creating new antibiotics, because the bacterial world very quickly adapts to new conditions, which means that you need to constantly invent new antibiotics, be one step ahead of nature. It also allows you to make new discoveries in the field of new materials. In any case, in the future, scientists will be needed who will be able to take advantage of the development of click-chemistry.
VF: “In the future, the most interesting things will happen in unexpected and applied implementations of this chemistry. Not necessarily in industry, but in new areas that we now do not even clearly represent. Most likely, new specialists will be the people who are well aware of what new materials are needed for, what are diagnostic compounds, that is, what diseases can be diagnosed, how can they be treated using precisely different versions of chemical synthesis molecules. That is, they themselves will not be synthetic organic chemists, but they will know what they want to get something new for, what kind of compounds they want to get in order to solve their particular problem. Click chemistry can be considered as a tool, if they know that, in principle, they have a tool that allows them to be stitched together or tagged in some way, then they will use them for their own purposes. "
If you do not want to read, you can watch the video with Valery Fokin here.
Click-chemistry. Start
The history of this trend in chemistry is not so long, it begins only from 1997, when the term itself appeared, and in 2001 Barry Sharpless published the first review article on the concept of click-chemistry in a journal. Speaking about click-chemistry, Valery compares it with an ideal tool that will allow you to build new molecules from designer cubes. His favorite image is a fastex fastener on the bag. On the set, he used, for example, the bag of our operator, in which he stores cameras. This fastener also has a distinctive click sound. Such a “click” allows you to build guaranteed reactions when a set of some elements will always give the same result and is irreversible. That is, it is such a molecular designer, a set of chemical reactions, processes, in order to synthesize molecules in the most efficient way.
')
Valery Fokin: “That is, the idea is that A + B gives C and nothing more. And it works always and in any conditions. The basic idea of ​​click chemistry is that if we imagine that we have two reagents, the reaction will take place always and everywhere. Accordingly, an irreversible bond will turn out, a clasp, which will allow us to connect two reactive blocks, two molecules into one or the other. And this connection is irreversible. "
Why click chemistry is needed, well, firstly, it opens up tremendous opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry, but more about that later, secondly, it allows you to better understand how molecules work to trace the fate of some compounds responsible for various diseases, there is how this happens at the molecular level. In a situation of illness, it is necessary to be at the scene of the event, where all this happens, and, accordingly, introduce tags there in order to see everything with your own eyes in the truest sense. And in this case, click-chemistry methods can be used as such a reporter, which is launched into the system.
What is special
The first thing Valery notes is that this is not pure science, not chemistry in its traditional form, but a new area at the junction of various disciplines, which will be used by biologists, chemists, and doctors. That is, again, it is a universal tool, a kind of recipe, when there is a set of reagents and instructions on how to use them in different cases and for different purposes.
VF: “In general, this area is very interdisciplinary, and the task of chemists was to make a certain set of reagents and reactions that would allow them to be used in any way, no matter in which area. People do not have to be chemists to use the results of this science. It's like a computer, like a black box in which many processes occur, but users only get the end result. ”
New professions
That is why the future chemist is also such a universal soldier who has basic knowledge in chemistry, biology and medicine. If we talk about the latter, then it opens up ample opportunities. This is what Valery calls the “pharmacy of the future”, when medicine will become not just personalized, but click-chemistry methods will allow collecting medicines directly in a pharmacy for different people and different diseases. And here, of course, we need both new pharmacists and doctors who will work directly with the patient, starting from the methods of diagnosis and ending with specific recipes. That is, click chemists will develop and search for those building blocks and blocks from which a new drug will be assembled.
Whether it is necessary and possible to actually become a click chemist is a question. Because it is rather a philosophy, a definite approach that can be used by “classical” chemists. Therefore, it is rather necessary to follow the traditional way of learning - through the chemistry department and research specifically in the field of chemistry, but with a focus on catalysis, on those reactions that may be useful in the context of click chemistry. That is, it is important for chemists of the future to understand how to properly use a tool called click-chemistry. At the same time, Valery, on the basis of his laboratory, is going to launch a special course focused on interdisciplinarity at the Physical and Technical Institute, noting that earlier there were no such initiatives in Russia.
VF: “The special training of these people should cover just a few disciplines - they need to know the minimum amount of chemical science, of course, to understand and imagine what organic synthesis represents in its simplest manifestations. Must know medical chemistry at the level of what they want to get. If before there were always semi-empirical studies - chemists made compounds, biologists tested them, then doctors tested them on organisms and used them in clinical trials, now interactions occur between all involved scientists who must orient themselves quite well in chemistry, biology, medicine, without being deeply trained specialists in each of the areas. "
Perspectives
To say exactly how the methods of click-chemistry will be used in the future is very difficult. Perhaps it will lead to new pharmacies, where, thanks to personalized medicine, medicines will be collected individually from various components. It can also bear fruit in the field of creating new antibiotics, because the bacterial world very quickly adapts to new conditions, which means that you need to constantly invent new antibiotics, be one step ahead of nature. It also allows you to make new discoveries in the field of new materials. In any case, in the future, scientists will be needed who will be able to take advantage of the development of click-chemistry.
VF: “In the future, the most interesting things will happen in unexpected and applied implementations of this chemistry. Not necessarily in industry, but in new areas that we now do not even clearly represent. Most likely, new specialists will be the people who are well aware of what new materials are needed for, what are diagnostic compounds, that is, what diseases can be diagnosed, how can they be treated using precisely different versions of chemical synthesis molecules. That is, they themselves will not be synthetic organic chemists, but they will know what they want to get something new for, what kind of compounds they want to get in order to solve their particular problem. Click chemistry can be considered as a tool, if they know that, in principle, they have a tool that allows them to be stitched together or tagged in some way, then they will use them for their own purposes. "
If you do not want to read, you can watch the video with Valery Fokin here.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/200420/
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