The applications of science Jon Ellman opens doors for drug discovery
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ert-butanesulfinamide. Thumbing through a chemistry magazine, you’d probably overlook it among the other advertisements for specialty bulk reagents. But it still catches the eye of chemistry professor Jon Ellman, who sees the ads for the compound he developed and feels a tinge of satisfaction. The name doesn’t tell you that it has become a standard reagent used for the discovery of new drugs, or that Ellman’s goal in synthesizing it was to help speed the development of therapeutics to fight cancer, diabetes and other human maladies.
College of Chemistry, UC Berkeley
Tert-butanesulfinamide has become an indispensable part of the toolkit of pharmaceutical chemists, just as battery-powered drills have become standard equipment for carpenters and woodworkers. Without the drills, many projects—from bookcases to houses—would never be built, or would be built more slowly. Similarly, without tert-butanesulfinamide, several drug candidates that are now undergoing clinical trials may never have been developed at all.