Synthesis:
Automated solid-phase synthesis of biomolecules defines 20th century biology. I previously covered a protecting group that is ubiquitous in DNA synthesis, but the Nobel was actually awarded for peptide chemistry....
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Posted on May 5, 2008 10:30 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Chlorinated solvents are great solvents. The polarizability of chlorine, moderate electronegativity, moderate volatility, lack of acidic protons or reactivity - it all adds up to a great reaction medium. However, they usually are toxic....
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Posted on May 1, 2008 8:49 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Everyone knows that many organic solvents won't mix with water (or, more generally, some polar solvents won't mix with some nonpolar solvents). What you might not know is that some highly fluorinated liquids aren't very polar at all, but they...
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Posted on January 21, 2008 10:48 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
So people gush over bmim and get the guaranteed publications for including "ionic liquid" in the title of their article. Ionic liquids are far from the newest fad, though, they've been around for nearly 100 years!...
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Posted on December 12, 2007 9:13 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When you take organic chemistry, you learn about methyl iodide for putting on a methyl group. Eventually, though, if you stick with chemistry, you need an alkylating agent for grown-ups....
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Posted on December 3, 2007 11:32 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As I've mentioned in the past, chemists often need to reduce a molecule by adding hydrogen. A medicinal chemist might get to an azide by way of an amine, or a food chemist might want to get to a saturated...
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Posted on November 5, 2007 7:58 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
My boss was, generally, far from cavalier about chemical hazards, but his quips were the best. "You'll get hit by a bus before this stuff gets you." "We all have to go sometime!" Or, when wiping up (gloveless) a concentrated (deep red)
ethidium bromide spill, "I'm too old to worry about this intercalator shit!"
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Posted on October 17, 2007 7:27 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As I noted in a recent entry on strychnine, NMR is important. Sometimes reference compounds like yesterday's molecule, TMS, will help you out....
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Posted on September 28, 2007 9:00 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
As I alluded to in a recent entry, NMR has been vital to science in recent decades - it's used in characterizing chemicals, cells, people, textiles - just about anything people have managed to figure out how to get into...
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Posted on September 27, 2007 8:41 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Integral to organic chemistry is hydrogenation - sometimes you need to make a functional group something a little less oxidized. For example, an azide or a nitrile can become an amine....
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Posted on September 18, 2007 8:47 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
