Drug discovery is being pursued through computer-aided design, synthesis, biological assaying, and crystallography. Lead identification features de novo design with the ligand growing program BOMB or docking of commercial compound libraries. Emphasis is placed on optimization of the resultant leads to yield potent, drug-like inhibitors. Monte Carlo/free-energy perturbation (FEP) simulations are often executed to identify the most promising choices for substituents on rings, heterocycles, and linking groups.

Researchers receive $2M NIH instrumentation grant 

The National Institutes of Health has awarded researchers in the Department of Chemistry a grant of nearly $2 million for a high-resolution mass spectrometer that will enhance capabilities for scientists in many fields across campus.

Hydrogen bonding is one of the most well-characterized non-covalent interactions.  Analogous to hydrogen bonding, halogen bonding has become an important focus of study, notably in supramolecular chemistry.  The geometric specificity of hydrogen and halogen bonding is often exploited to build crystal frameworks.  These two interactions can be used in tandem to created novel organic frameworks.  Direct competition occurs between the interactions as the same acceptors can form both interactions.  Understanding this

In plants, three Fe-S cluster assembly pathways exist namely SUF, ISC and CIA, involved in the maturation of iron sulfur proteins in the plastid, mitochondria and cytosol respectively. In this talk, we report on anaerobic purification of three classes of recombinant mitochondrial Fe-S cluster carrier proteins from A. thaliana, namely GRXS15, ISCA1a/2, and NFU4/5, and characterization of their Fe-S cluster content using UV-visible absorption/CD, resonance Raman, EPR, and analytical studies.

Ever since its discovery in 1988 by two research groups in France and Germany, Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) has revolutionized the application of magnetic sensors in hard disk drives and magnetic memories.^1,2 It also offers an inspiration for their use in magnetic biodetections, a growing field with great promises.