Finding new life in old chemicals for pharmaceuticals using light-driven chemistry

Drug companies maintain large libraries of chemical compounds that can be screened for potential use in the development of new pharmaceuticals. One class of these compounds, sulfonamides, is used in antibiotics and in drugs to treat type 2 diabetes, hypertension and inflammation. Thousands of these sulfonamides exist in these libraries, but their use beyond their initial purpose is limited because they are difficult to chemically modify.