The UMD Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry cordially invites you to the

2024 Russell Marker Lecture

with

K. Barry Sharpless
2001 and 2022 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
W.M. Keck Professor of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute

on

"Applications of SuFEx Click Chemistry for Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology"

Thursday, April 18, 2024
3:30 p.m. Lecture followed by a reception
Chemistry Building Lecture Hall, Room 1407

If you have a question about this event, including disability accommodations, please contact Cathy Fisanich at cclark4@umd.edu or 301.405.1795

About the Talk
K. Barry Sharpless's work has been guided by the modular simplicity of nature—the fact that all molecules of life are made from several dozen building blocks. Here, he will discuss the Sulfur(VI) Fluoride Exchange (SuFEx), a second near-perfect click chemistry reaction pioneered at Scripps. SuFEx allows reliable molecular connections to be made under metal-free conditions. He will illustrate this with applications in drug discovery, chemical biology and polymer chemistry.

About the Speaker
K. Barry Sharpless' 50-plus year research career has been devoted to finding new tools and better general methods for exploring the chemical universe. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions. In 2022, he was awarded another Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing "click chemistry," making him only the second scientist to win two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. Click chemistry, a discovery methodology based on the insight that the molecules of life are made from less than several dozen small building blocks, provides a reliable way to uncover useful chemical function and spring-loaded 'perfect' reactions. Today, the focus of the Sharpless lab is Sulfur(VI) fluoride exchange (SuFEx) click chemistry, which allows reliable molecular connections under metal-free conditions. SuFEx has applications in synthetic methodology; chemical biology and drug discovery; and polymers and material science. Sharpless received his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1963 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University in 1968. Before joining Scripps Research in 1990, he was a chemistry faculty member at MIT and Stanford.

About the Lecture
Established in 1988 by Russell E. Marker (B.S. '23, M.S. '24, chemistry), the annual Russell Marker Lecture in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Maryland focuses on natural products chemistry. Marker was an award-winning chemist who invented the octane rating system for gasoline. He also developed a proprietary chemical process—known as Marker degradation—that led to numerous hormone therapies, including the birth control pill.