Staudinger Ligation and Reactions – From Bioorthogonal Labeling to Next‐Generation Biopharmaceuticals

Abstract

In this review, we highlight groundbreaking discoveries and applications of Staudinger reactions in the molecular life sciences, starting from the engineering of the Staudinger ligation as a bioorthogonal reaction until most recent applications in modern bioconjugation methods to generate next-generation biopharmaceuticals. Bioorthogonal reactions refer to a set of chemoselective transformations in biological environments able to take place in presence of naturally occurring functional groups. The Staudinger ligation set a new paradigm of such transformations, resulting in the development of various labeling and bioconjugation strategies for the modification of (bio-)molecules of interest.