Title: Polymer Chemistry-Inspired Approaches to Precision Biomacromolecules
Abstract: Despite recent progress in genomics, proteomics, and glycomics, the structural heterogeneity of biomacromolecules such as polysaccharides and proteins remains a significant barrier for their characterization and utilization. A long-term goal of our research group is to develop synthetic approaches to precision biomacromolecules and their mimetics and use them to understand and manipulate biology. In this seminar, I will discuss two polymer chemistry-inspired approaches to precision biomacromolecules: (1) A SuFEx-based approach to peptides, proteins, and glycomimetic oligomers with defined sites, sequences, and stoichiometry of sulfation; (2) chemical synthesis of polysaccharides from living polymerization.