Historical Context
In 1953, Theodor Wieland and coworkers discovered the chemical foundation for this reaction, when the reaction of valine-thioester and cysteine amino acid in aqueous buffer was shown to yield the dipeptide valine-cysteine. The reaction proceeded through the intermediacy of a thioester containing the sulfur of the cysteine residue. Wieland's work led to the 'active ester' method for making protected peptide segments in conventional solution synthesis in organic solvents.
In the 1990s, Stephen Kent and coworkers at The Scripps Research Institute independently developed "Native Chemical Ligation", the first practical method to ligate large unprotected peptide fragments.
Read more about this topic: Native Chemical Ligation
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or context:
“Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.”
—William Golding (b. 1911)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)