Department of Chemistry

Professor Matthias Heyden, Arizona State University “Making Sense of the “Jiggling and Wiggling of Atoms” in Molecular Simulations” Vibrational spectroscopies at mid-infrared frequencies provide excellent probes to characterize functional groups and their immediate chemical environment. However, from a thermodynamic and dynamic point of view, only the ground state of these vibrations is significantly populated at […]

Associate Professor Sarah Slavoff, Yale University "Dark Matter of the Human Proteome" Advanced methods in next-generation sequencing and proteogenomics have revealed thousands of previously invisible human protein-coding genes, increasing the known size of the human proteome by as much as 40%. This previously unannotated proteomic “dark matter” includes small open reading frames (smORFs) encoding polypeptides […]

Professor Michael Freeman, University of Minnesota “Biosynthetic insights into α-N-methylated peptide natural products” Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) provide biosynthetic routes to peptide modifications not often observed in primary metabolism. We have recently discovered RiPP pathways that install peptide backbone α-N-methylations conferring therapeutically useful peptide properties including membrane permeability, increased target specificity, and […]

Professor Todd Hyster, Cornell University “Photoenzymatic Catalysis - Using Light to Reveal New Enzyme Functions” Enzymes are exquisite catalysts for chemical synthesis, capable of providing unparalleled levels of chemo-, regio-, diastereo- and enantioselectivity. Unfortunately, biocatalysts are often limited to the reactivity patterns found in nature. In this talk, I will share my groups efforts to […]