Former chemist here. I worked in a lab where our main goal was to attach a special fluorophore (= fluorescent molecular probe) to a protein so we could observe

Former chemist here. I worked in a lab where our main goal was to attach a special fluorophore (= fluorescent molecular probe) to a protein so we could observe how it changes conformation under different conditions. The way we did that was with click chemistry: we incorporated a synthetic amino acid (homopropargylglycine) into the protein and then used a copper-catalyzed click reaction to attach the probe to the synthetic amino acid. (Specifically this reaction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_chemistry#Copper(I)-catalyzed_azide-alkyne_cycloaddition_(CuAAC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_chemistry#Copper(I)-cata...). It's definitely cool stuff.