Developing various anti-HIV, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial drugs could be a lot easier as researchers have now developed an economical, reliable and metal-free chemical reaction that could yield building blocks for these drugs.
The chemical reaction, developed by a team of researchers from University of Leuven in Belgium, yields fully functional 1,2,3-triazoles.
Leveraging the compound's surprisingly stable structure, drug developers have successfully used 1,2,3-triazoles as building blocks in various anti-HIV, anti-cancer and anti-bacterial drugs.
But efforts to synthesize the compound have been hampered by one serious hurdle: they depend on harmful heavy metals to work, and this severely limits their biological applications.
In new experiments, the researchers reported that 1,2,3-triazoles can be synthesised through a metal-free, three-component reaction using readily available ingredients.
"We were able to develop a reaction that provided a good yield, high regioselectivity and easy access to diversely functionalized 1,2,3-triazoles," said professor Wim Dehaen.
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"In other words, the reaction produces plenty of the compounds we are looking for, does so reliably without unwanted or unexpected outcomes, and does this in a way that makes it easy for us to isolate the compound. This makes our method highly desirable," Dehaen added.
The findings appeared in the journal Angewandte Chemie.