Chemical biology

Chemical biology

The primary focus of the lab in the area of chemical biology is to engineer supramolecular systems to address challenges in bioimaging and create novel approaches for diagnostic sensing and therapeutics. Among the available repertoire of supramolecular building blocks, host-guest systems based on synthetic macrocyclic receptors are of specific interest to us due to their high levels of affinity and chemoselectivity, particularly for recognition processes in the biological complexities. The specific benefit of employing these supramolecular host-guest receptors in engineering molecular systems arises from the highly selective yet reversible nature of the interaction between host-guest pairs. This dynamic nature of the host-guest interaction allows a molecular-level design approach to control properties of the systems in a manner that is programmable, modular, and responsive. We employ these concepts of molecular recognition to engineering molecules and materials to address challenges in various domains of biology and materials science.   We are working on combining synthetic host-guest systems with the biological interface to develop various novel technologies with relevance to both fundamental and medical research. Examples include biorthogonal imaging and sensing, methods for super-resolution imaging, and new approaches for delivery and activation of therapeutic materials. In the area of programmable materials, we are interested in synthetic nucleic acid-based design approaches. With nucleic acid as a building block, the benefit is that molecular interactions can be precisely programmed for self-assembly purposes. This property can be harnessed to make nucleic acid-based systems for achieving highly sensitive diagnostic and imaging platforms.

Research activity in the area of chemical biology