The development of environmentally friendly and biologically benign effective systems to chelate and remove toxic heavy metal ions is of utmost importance. Curcumin, the active ingredient in the spice Turmeric is a known chelator of transition metals. The metal chelation ability of curcumin is severely limited by its hydrophobicity. The efficient synthesis of water soluble curcumin and sugar brush polymer conjugate via atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and click chemistry is reported here. The polymer conjugate selectively binds and precipitates a range of highly toxic metals that include cadmium, lead, and copper, under physiologically relevant conditions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.