Project Title: Organic Chemistry Project
Project Description:
Organic chemistry at the interface with neurobiology. A SURFer would
work in the organic chemistry labs of Dougherty as part of a
collaborative project involving the Dougherty and Lester (biology)
groups. The project involves a newly developed procedure for making
systematic structural modifications or neuroreceptors and ion channel
proteins. These molecules are the fundamental processing units of the
brain, and the goal is to develop a molecular-scale understanding of
their structure and function. The project is highly interdisciplinary,
involving organic synthesis; physical/computational organic chemistry;
molecular biology; and electrophysiology.
The SURF project emphasizes the organic chemistry component. It
involves the design and synthesis of unnatural amino acids that will
be incorporated into the proteins. The major component will be
non-trivial organic synthesis, along with spectroscopic
characterization (NMR, etc.). In addition, by being part of the
overall team on the project, the SURFer will be exposed to the
molecular biology and neurobiology components, with an option to get
directly involved in these aspects at a later time.
Background Information:
Literature References:
The first ms. on this topic has been submitted to Science. See DAD for
details.
Requirements:
The sponsor requires that interested students meet the following
requirements: Ch 41abc, Ch 5
Research Sponsor
Sponsor: Dennis A. Dougherty
Division: Chemistry
Mail Code: 164-30
Phone: 6089
E-mail: dad@igor.caltech.edu