Date

Thursday 17 Sep 2026

Time

16:15 - 16:45

Location

BE010

Supervisor

Hermen Overkleeft

Jury

Sander van Kasteren

Bioorthogonal chemistry uses chemical reactions that can occur inside living systems without reacting with any native biological molecules. An important example is click-to-release, a reaction in which a tetrazine reacts with a trans-cyclooctene, triggering bond cleavage and releasing an active payload precisely at the reaction site, such as in tumor tissue. This colloquium focuses on the development of newly designed efficient in vivo click-to-release methodologies rooting from inverse electron demand Diels Alder. Recent breakthroughs, including the C₂-symmetric trans-cyclooctene and hydroxyaryl-tetrazines, address long-standing challenges in kinetics, stability, and release yield. The first clinical click-to-release activatable protodrug , SQ3370, illustrates that in vivo drug activation is feasible in humans, by releasing caged doxorubicin precisely at the tumor tissue. These developments establish click-to-release as a promising platform for next-generation therapeutics.