2024 Russell Marker Lecture by Chemistry Nobel Laureate K. Barry Sharpless

Professor K. Barry Sharpless will present a seminar entitled "Applications of SuFEx Click Chemistry for Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology" and a reception will immediately follow.

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.

The Russell Marker Lecture was established by Russell E. Marker (B.S. '23, M.S. '24, chemistry), 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. This annual lectureship focuses on natural product chemistry.