Christian Freeman, a Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry, is among seven University of Georgia doctoral students who were recently named 2021 ARCS Scholars by the Office of Research. Recipients of the faculty-nominated award, which is given to students pursuing degrees in science, engineering, and medical research who excel in science communication, will receive $8,000 each for the next three years to support their dissertation research.

Strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition (SPAAC) has emerged as a popular click chemistry technique¹. Over just the past few decades, a plethora of cycloalkyne SPAAC reagents have been developed for use as biorthogonal probes in cell and protein studies^2-4, peptide stapling reagents⁵, and crosslinkers in polymers⁶. Most of these cycloalkyne reagents suffer from issues that hinder their utility; these being low aqueous solubility and slow reaction rates.

This week, there will be three-minute thesis presentations from nine senior graduate students: Zhengwei Chao, Cynthia Tope, Rob Williams, Yongwook Kim, Tret Burdette, Lily Birx, Fangchao Jiang, Tanvir Ahmed, and Yiqing Zhang