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