Functionalised 3,3′-bipyridines—a new class of dinucleating ligands

General synthetic methodologies for the design of dinucleating ligands for copper based upon divergent 6,6′-disubstituted-3,3′-bipyridine motifs are described. Preliminary studies of model tridentate NXN (X=S, O or N) metal-binding domains for incorporation into the 3,3′-bipyridines are also described.