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Chemical Biology: The Interface Between Chemistry and Biology

A significant number of the Chemical Biology faculty are using their chemical expertise to explore biological phenomena. Their research programs include studies of enzyme mechanisms, membrane structure and function, drug discovery, protein folding, cellular receptors, and macromolecular structure determination. Novel biosynthetic and chemical strategies are being used to synthesize small molecules for use in probing enzyme mechanisms, exploring ligand-receptor interactions and in treating disease. Methods such as high resolution NMR, stopped-flow kinetics, fluorescence, CD, UV/vis, and Raman spectroscopies are used to probe macromolecule structure, function and folding.

The Chemical Biology track aims to provide graduate students with a more intensive training in biology and biochemistry than a typical chemistry degree to help them pursue their chosen research studies in this field. Graduate students take a two course sequence: CHE 541 – Biomolecular Structure and Analysis, and CHE 542 – Chemical Biology, in their first year, in addition to courses in other areas of chemistry that complement their research interests. Students typically take one or two graduate-level courses offered by the Molecular and Cellular Biology, Biochemistry and Structural Biology, Molecular Pharmacology, or Biophysics Graduate Program. The choice of course depends on what is most relevant to the student’s research project.

		Elizabeth Boon		Assistant Professor. Fundamentals and applications in biological sensing. Prokaryotic nitric oxide biology. Fundamentals and applications of the H-NOX family. Peptide and protein engineering for novel sensing applications.
		Isaac Carrico		Assistant Professor. Introduction of small molecules into biological systems for the purpose of tracking or perturbing cellular processes. Metabolic engineering. Protein engineering. Bioorthogonal reaction development.
		Dale Drueckhammer		Professor. Computer-based design and synthesis of receptors and sensors for biomolecules. Design and synthesis of enzyme inhibitors. Enzyme reaction mechanisms
		Frank Johnson		Professor. Synthesis of viral enzyme inhibitors. Chemical aspects of genetic toxicology. New organo-alkali synthetic chemi
		Erwin London		Professor. Membrane protein structure and folding. Cell entry by membrane-penetrating bacterial toxin proteins. Role of cholesterol in membrane structure.
		Iwao Ojima		Distinguished Professor. Design, synthesis, and structure-activity relationships of medicinally-active compounds, especially anticancer agents. Development of new synthetic methods based on asymmetric synthesis, homogeneous catalysis and organometalic chemistry.
		Daniel P. Raleigh		Professor. Experimental studies of protein folding and amyloid formation.
		Nicole Sampson		Professor. Bioorganic chemistry and mechanistic enzymology. Investigation of the structure and function of cholesterol oxidase protein-membrane interactions, and its relationship to Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis. Synthesis of peptides and polymers to probe the role of ADAM proteins in mammalian fertilization.
		Carlos Simmerling		Associate Professor. Development of tools for efficient simulation of chemical systems and using them to study the structure and dynamics of molecules involved in biological processes.
		Peter Tonge		Professor. Biological chemistry and enzymology. Quantitating substrate strain in enzyme-catalyzed reactions using vibrational and NMR spectroscopies. Rational drug design. Pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Structure-function studies of fluorescent proteins.
		Jin Wang		Assistant Professor.Theoretical biophysics and biophysical chemistry; protein folding; molecular recognition; biomolecular reaction dynamics; single molecules.
		Arnold Wishnia		Associate Professor. Magnetic resonance imaging using laser-polarized ¹²⁹Xe.


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