Saturday, March 07, 2009

Radical New Green Chemistry Makes The Impossible Possible


SCIENCE NEWS, AGAIN. Peptides-on-demand: Radical New Green Chemistry Makes The Impossible Possible This one is as important for organic chemistry as the Haber process was to "classical" chemistry. And it's McGill, and they're giving it away. This is going to affect how a lot of stuff gets made in the future.
McGill University chemistry professor Chao-Jun (C.J.) Li is known as one of the world leading pioneers in green chemistry, an entirely new approach to the science which eschews the use of toxic, petrochemical-based solvents in favour of basic substances like water and new ways of making molecules.

Li and his colleagues have discovered an entirely new way of synthesizing peptides using simple reagents, a process that would be impossible in classical chemistry

Peptides are enormously important to biological and proteomic research, but classical chemistry provides no easy way to synthesize them, making the potential impact of this discovery very significant.

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