Plenary Lectures

Barry SHARPLESS

Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), La Jolla, California, USA

Lecture Date: Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Lecture Time: 08:30 to 09:15 hrs

"Orthogonal Reactivity"

Organic azides and alkynes share two unique characteristics: 1) both are extremely reactive in principle, but in reality are restrained from most all reactions by high kinetic barriers – like ‘tigers in a cage’, and so ‘invisble’ in the acid/base environments of terrestrial chemistry; and 2) their only reliable and highly selective reaction path is with each other, which sets the stage for unique ‘orthogonal reactivity scenarios’.

Our latest results [all crucially dependent on the ‘perfect’ orthogonal reactivity of azide and alkyne groups] will be presented.