Bad chemistry

General chemistry courses haven't changed significantly in forty years. Because most basic chemistry students are premedical students, medical schools have enormous influence and could help us start all over again to create undergraduate chemistry education that works.     

Selenopeptide chemistry

This review focuses on the chemical aspects of the 21st proteinogenic amino acid, selenocysteine in peptides and proteins. It describes the physicochemical properties of selenium/sulfur and selenocysteine/cysteine based on comprehensive structural (X‐ray, NMR, CD) and biological data, and illustrates why selenocysteine is considered the most conservative substitution of cysteine. The main focus lies on the synthetic methods on selenocysteine incorporation into peptides and proteins, including an overview of the selenocysteine building block syntheses for Boc‐ and Fmoc‐SPPS. Selenocysteine‐mediated reactions such as native chemical ligation and dehydroalanine formation are addressed towards peptide conjugation. Selenopeptides have very interesting and distinct properties which lead to a diverse range of applications such as structural, functional and mechanistic probes, robust scaffolds, enzymatic reaction design, peptide conjugations and folding tools. Copyright © 2008 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Good chemistry

The subject matter in chemistry courses reflects almost nothing of the issues that chemists are interested in. It is important to formulate a set of topics--and a Medical College Admissions Test reflecting them--that would leave chemistry departments no choice but to change their teaching.     

Combinatorial carbohydrate chemistry

The application of combinatorial chemistry to the synthesis of carbohydrate-based compound collections has received increased attention in recent years. New strategies for the solution-phase synthesis of oligosaccharide libraries have been reported, and the use of monosaccharides as scaffolds in the generation of combinatorial libraries has been described. Novel approaches to the assembly of carbohydrate-based antibiotics, such as aminoglycoside analogs and vancomycin derivatives, have also been disclosed.     

Marine fragrance chemistry

The main marine message in perfumery is projected by Calone 1951 (7-methyl-2H-1,5-benzodioxepin-3(4H)-one). Kraft (Givaudan) and Gaudin (Firmenich) further maximized the marine fragrance molecular membership by extending the carbon chain of the 7-Me group. Our research targeted the polar group of the benzodioxepinone parent compound to investigate how this region of molecular makeup resonates with the dominant marine fragrance of the Calone 1951 structure. The olfactory evaluation of analogues prepared by chemical modification or removal of the CO group resulted in the introduction of aldehydic, sweet and floral-fruity notes with a diluted/diminished potency of the marine odor. To further analyze the olfactory properties of benzodioxepinones containing a diverse range of aromatic ring substituents, a novel synthesis route was developed. We found that a 7-alkyl group in Calone 1951 was essential for the maintenance of the significant marine odor characteristic, and our studies support the concept that the odorant structure occupying the hydrophobic binding pocket adjacent to the aromatic ring-binding site of the olfactory receptor is pivotal in the design and discovery of more potent and characteristic marine fragrances. How the structure of benzodioxepinones connects to marine sea-breeze fragrances is our continuing challenging research focus at the chemistry-biology interface.