{"id":235125,"date":"2026-04-13T23:38:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:38:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/new-molecular-handle-uses-common-amino-acid-to-build-complex-medicines"},"modified":"2026-04-13T23:38:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:38:57","slug":"new-molecular-handle-uses-common-amino-acid-to-build-complex-medicines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/new-molecular-handle-uses-common-amino-acid-to-build-complex-medicines","title":{"rendered":"New \u2018molecular handle\u2019 uses common amino acid to build complex medicines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-molecular-handle-uses-common-amino-acid-to-build-complex-medicines.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a new study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-71815-z\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, a team of chemists has unveiled a radically simple way to attach a highly sought-after \u201cmolecular handle,\u201d known as the dichloromethyl group, onto complex compounds. Instead of relying on the aggressive, heavy-metal or radiation-heavy techniques of the past, the team used a common, naturally occurring amino acid called proline to gently choreograph the assembly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRather than forcing these molecules into conventional reactivity modes or circumventing their electronic ambivalence, we harnessed their electronic ambivalence as a design principle,\u201d says Prof. Dmitry Tsvelikhovsky, who led the research team at the Institute for Drug Research at the Hebrew University, alongside Elihay Kuniavsky and Dvora R. Levy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new study published in Nature Communications, a team of chemists has unveiled a radically simple way to attach a highly sought-after \u201cmolecular handle,\u201d known as the dichloromethyl group, onto complex compounds. Instead of relying on the aggressive, heavy-metal or radiation-heavy techniques of the past, the team used a common, naturally occurring amino acid [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}