Has Click Chemistry Lead to a Paradigm Shift in Polymer Material Design?

Has the introduction of the click chemistry concept by Sharpless and colleagues in 2001 lead to a paradigm shift in how we approach the design of macromolecular materials; or is it simply a relatively inconsequential re-branding exercise of already existing and slightly optimized but well-tried and tested reactions as some critics would have it? The current Trend Article analyses the situation by examining a series of select macromolecular research fields to shed light on this question, providing an unambiguous answer: The focusing of polymer chemists through the click concept on what constitutes a powerful modular chemical transformation to generate a specific polymeric material is a defining element in contemporary synthetic polymer chemistry, transcending a specific reaction. Without the introduction of the click philosophy several classes of innovative materials and polymer designs would not have been realized.