Berkeley chemistry professors Chris Chang and Dean Toste have developed a new method of protein ligation, the joining of molecules with proteins.

The technique, called Redox Activated Chemical Tagging (ReACT), involves the modification of proteins by attaching chemical cargos to the amino acid methionine. ReACT functions as a new type of chemical Swiss army knife that supports a wide variety of fields, spanning fundamental studies of protein function to applications in cancer treatment and drug discovery.