The term bioorthogonal chemistry refers to any chemical reaction that can occur inside of living systems without interfering with native biochemical processes. Selective chemical reactions that are orthogonal to the diverse functionality of biological systems are now recognized as important tools in chemical biology. As important labeling strategies, bioorthogonal chemistry allows for selective covalent attachment of synthetic groups to biopolymers, such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and glycans, are the key to many applications in biotechnology, medicine, and basic research. Such reactions have enabled the study of biomolecules in real time in living systems without interfering normal cellular functions. Bioorthogonal "click" reactions are now widely used in chemical biology for many applications such as activity-based protein profiling, monitoring cell proliferation, generating novel enzyme inhibitors, monitoring the synthesis of newly formed proteins, identifying protein targets, site-specific tagging of proteins, detection of DNA and RNA synthesis, visualization of glycans, detection of posttranslational modifications in proteins, and studying glycan processing.

BioMaxLab is dedicated to designing and developing novel probes for bioconjugation based on bioorthogonal chemistry. The probes we develop will be based on, but not limited to, a variety novel chemistry, such as photoinduced cycloaddition of diaryl tetrazole to alkene, copper-free click chemistry, strain promoted alkyne-azide cycloaddition (SPAAC), cross-metathesis with allyl sulfides and Diels-Alder reaction of tetrazine with cycloalkenem and so on.