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Bringing chemistry to life

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Bioorthogonal chemistry allows a wide variety of biomolecules to be specifically labeled and probed in living cells and whole organisms. Here we discuss the history of bioorthogonal reactions and some of the most interesting and important advances in the field.

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Figure 1: Bioorthogonal reactions.

Katie Vicari

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Jewett, J. Prescher, E. Sletten, B. Swarts and P. Wu for helpful comments on the manuscript. Research in our laboratory is supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (GM066047) and Department of Defense (PC080659).

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Correspondence to Carolyn R Bertozzi.

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Boyce, M., Bertozzi, C. Bringing chemistry to life. Nat Methods 8, 638–642 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1657

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