What does a 3-carbon molecule have to do with caffeine—and a modern electrochemical reaction inspired by batteries?
How do chemists tell one protected alcohol: —Your turn.— while telling another:
Fluorine forms one of the strongest bonds to carbon. So once F is attached to an aromatic ring, it must be difficult to replace... right?
Why would chemists hide two hydroxyl groups before building a natural product?
Why would chemists turn tiny glycine into a molecule carrying two large phenyl rings?
Which group would you expect fluoride to replace? Look at 5-bromo-3-nitropyridine-2-carbonitrile.
Why would a chemist deliberately add an entire benzyl group to a molecule...
How can a molecule with only five carbons become useful in drug discovery?
How much difference can one carbon make? Resorcinol has two hydroxyl groups on a benzene ring.
What happens if you take one of RNA's familiar molecular building blocks...
Sometimes the most useful thing a chemist can tell part of a molecule is:
Can a tiny molecule already contain the blueprint for a ring that doesn't exist yet?
What do the proteins in your body and a bottle of laboratory reagent have in common?
How does a straight-chain molecule turn into a nitrogen ring?
How do medicinal chemists explore thousands of possible molecules without starting from scratch every time?
Can changing one tiny side group change how an entire drug molecule behaves?
What's the smallest carbon ring you can build? Three carbon atoms.
Two bromine atoms. Same molecule. Same element. So surely a chemist can't tell them apart?
Bromine and chlorine sit next to the same benzene ring. Surely they're basically doing the same job?
Can two molecules contain exactly the same atoms, connected in exactly the same order—and still be different chemicals?
What can a chemist do with one tiny benzene ring? Quite a lot—if the right pieces are attached to it.
How much chemistry can you pack into five carbon atoms? Quite a lot.
Can a molecule have more than one "door" for chemists to open?
How do scientists discover a better drug molecule? Often, they don't make one giant leap.
A chemical with a name this long probably doesn't sound like it has a story.
Can an enzyme tell the difference between two parts of a molecule that look identical?
Can a molecule be important even if it never becomes a medicine?
Most chemicals never become famous. Some are born to become parts of something else.
How do scientists make DNA? Not by growing it. By building it—one letter at a time.
Some of the most important molecules in medicine are astonishingly small.
Why do so many drug molecules begin with the same aromatic ring?
Imagine trying to repaint a house without getting any paint on the windows.
Why are medicinal chemists so fascinated by triangles? Not geometric triangles—but molecular ones.
Why do chemists put fluorine into so many modern medicines? The answer isn't simply "because fluorine is reactive." In fact, the opposite is often true. Why do chemists put fluorine into so many modern medicines? The answer isn't simply "because fluorine is reactive." In fact, the opposite is often true.
Three atoms. That's all it takes to change the way chemists build molecules.