SOF4 is a gas that was discovered over a hundred years ago but is rarely used because it is difficult to prepare and highly reactive. Now a collaboration of chemists including Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor John E. Moses, Nobel laureate K. Barry Sharpless and Associate Professor Peng Wu, both of Scripps Research, and Han Zuilhof of Wageningen University found a way to use the molecule safely as building blocks for new products. In a paper in Nature Chemistry, they describe a new set of modifiable polymers made from SOF4.