Using the above chemistry, you can attach DNA oligos to lipids, DNA oligos to proteins, fluorophores to DNA, fluorophores to proteins at particular locations or other complex drugs to DNA, protein or lipids.

Once you get DNA oligos in there you can do computation, as X binds X', and Y to Y'. So you can have all sorts of complex synthetic & designed interactions using chemistry that is both seamless and doesn't interfere with normal molecular biolgy.

Once you have proteins, you can localize particular chemistries.

A specific example would describe Bertozzi's work - where sugars with a chemical "handle" are installed on to the cell surface. You can then click something like a fluorophore onto the sugars with handles to figure out where these specific sugars are on a cell surface.

Ah, so we're definitely not talking bolting together the little stuff, like pyrrole + benzene ring kind of thing?

You can do that (glue together two tiny molecules of arbitrary size) but the connector that you get that joins the two pieces in the resulting molecule is not arbitrary.

I'm not aware of any major discoveries that have come about from this technique. Can someone correct me?

I'd accept:

- elucidating a new signal transduction pathway

- discovering an uncharacterized enzyme

- measuring a biochemical constant of a known molecule (Kd e.g.)

- discovering a new drug target that then gets exploited