Self-immolative polymers are an emerging class of macromolecules with distinct disassembly profiles that set them apart from other general degradable materials. These polymers are programmed to disassemble spontaneously from head to tail, through a domino-like fragmentation, upon response to extremal stimuli. In the time since we first reported this unique type of molecule, several groups around the world have developed new, creative molecular structures that perform analogously to our pioneering polymers. Self-immolative polymers are now widely recognized as an important class of stimuli-responsive materials for a wide range of applications such as signal amplification, biosensing, drug delivery, and materials science. The quinone-methide elimination was shown to be an effective tool to achieve rapid domino-like fragmentation of polymeric molecules. Thus, numerous applications of self-immolative polymers are based on this disassembly chemistry. Although several other fragmentation reactions achieved the function requested for sequential disassembly, we predominantly focused in this Perspective on examples of self-immolative polymers that disassemble through the quinone-methide elimination. Selected examples of self-immolative polymers that disassembled through other chemistries are briefly described. The growing demand for stimuli-responsive degradable materials with novel molecular backbones and enhanced properties guarantees the future interest of the scientific community in this unique class of polymers.

Adamantyl‐dioxetane luminophores are an important class of chemiluminescent molecular probes for diagnostics and imaging. We have developed a new efficient synthetic route for preparation of adamantyl‐enolether as precursors for dioxetane chemiluminescent luminophores. The synthesis is convergent, using an unusual Stille cross‐coupling reaction employing a stannane‐enolether, to directly afford adamantyl‐enolether. In a following simple step, the dioxetane is obtained by oxidation of the enolether precursor with singlet‐oxygen. The scope of this synthetic route is broad since a large number of haloaryl substrates are either commercially available or easily accessible. Such a late‐stage derivatization strategy simplifies the rapid exploration of novel luminogenic molecular structures in a library format and simplifies the synthesis of known dioxetane luminophores. We expect that this new synthetic strategy will be particularly useful in the design and synthesis of yet unexplored dioxetane chemiluminescent luminophores.

We report a chemiluminescent probe (CLPT1) that permits the paired detection of tyrosinase (Tyr) and biological thiols. Tyr only leads to a poor chemiluminescence response, a finding ascribed to the...

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Influenza A virus is the most virulent influenza subtype and is associated with large-scale global pandemics characterized by high levels of morbidity and mortality. Developing simple and sensitive molecular methods...