Department of Chemistry | Washington University in St. Louis

Two Lasers

The Michael Gross group intersects two lasers: the first is a temperature jump at 1900 cm-1(IR) to heat a flowing solution containing a protein and perturb its folding. The second at 248 nm (UV) is an FPOP probe generating OH radicals that footprint the folding state of the protein on the microsec time scale. For a description of this work, see: T-jump and Fast Photochemical Oxidation Probe Sub Millisecond Protein Folding, Jiawei Chen, Don L. Rempel, Michael L. Gross, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 15502–15504 (2010).

Patterning Cells on Ordinary Glass

Glycol terminated trichlorosilanes make it possible to directly pattern proteins and cells on ordinary glass coverslips. The Maurer group is working to develop new surface chemistry to answer biological questions that are beyond the reach of current techniques. The group's work focuses primarily on questions in neurobiology.

Sequence or Structure: Using Bioinformatics and Homology Modeling to Understand Functional Relationships

Homology modeling is a critical tool for experimentalists interested in understanding protein structure-function relationships. The Maurer group has explored the interrelationship between sequence, structure, and function in the preparation of cAMP/cGMP binding site models to gain insight into how experimentalists can easily construct useful homology models. Read more...

Native Electrospray Mass Spectrometry Reveals the Nature and Stoichiometry of Pigments in the FMO Photosynthetic Antenna Protein

The FMO antenna protein from green sulfur photosynthetic bacteria has been analyzed by native mass spectrometry by Wen et al. Biochemistry (2011) 50: 3502-3511. This revealed additional pigments that function to couple this complex to the chlorosome complex that feeds energy to it. This work was a collaboration between the Blankenship and Gross research groups.

Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs) Patterned by Microcontact Printing can be Used to Produce Patterned Lipid Bilayers

The Maurer group has developed a method for using patterned self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold substrates to form supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) over glycol terminated monolayers that resist protein and lipid adsorption. Large transmembrane proteins, such as alpha-hemolysin, can be preferentially inserted into the patterned bilayer regions. These patterned bilayers provide a new platform for the study of transmembrane proteins and phospholipid bilayers.

Building Addressable Libraries: Locating Amines on a Chip

The image shows a "site-selective" reductive amination sequence on a microelectrode array, investigated by Kevin Moeller's group. In this experiment, Pd(II) is used at selected electrodes as an oxidant to generate a carbonyl for the reductive amination. Two reactions were conducted placing different fluorescent dyes on the array.

Identification and experimental verification of a novel family of bacterial cyclic nucleotide-gated (bCNG) ion channels

Over fifty putative cyclic nucleotide gated ion channels have been identified in bacteria and several of these channels have been confirmed to gate in response to cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) alone. The Maurer group is studying this new and exciting family of bacterial ion channels, which are an important model system for mammalian ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs).

FPOP

Using a pulsed laser to give h?, the Michael Gross group photolyzes HO-OH to produce HO• for foot printing solvent-accessible side chains on proteins. The approach, coupled with MS analysis, maps protein interfaces faster than a protein can unfold. Read more. . .

Building Addressable Libraries: A Site-Selective Oxidation Reaction?

The image shows a "site-selective" Wacker oxidation on a microelectrode array, fabricated(?) by Kevin Moeller's research group. In this experiment, the Wacker oxidation is triggered by using the electrodes in the array to generate a Pd(II) oxidant.

Determining Protein:Ligand Affinities by PLIMSTEX (Protein-Ligand Interactions by Mass Spectrometry, Titration, and H/D EXchange):

Using a new approach in mass spectrometry, the Michael Gross group follows amide exchange of a protein during titration with any ligand to give protein affinities. The curve, after modeling, yields the binding constant (Κ_i or β_i)

Next-Generation Tools for Molecular Modeling

The Ponder lab is researching advanced force fields for molecular dynamics simulation of water, ions, organic molecules and biopolymers. Our AMOEBA polarizable model produces "chemically accurate" interaction energetics for many systems and is being used in a variety of applications, including: proteins folding analysis, computation of free energies of binding in host-guest and protein-ligand systems, and prediction of small molecule crystal structures.

Amidine-Based Catalysts

This class of asymmetric catalysts developed by the Birman group shows remarkable efficacy and versatility in promoting enantioselective acylation reactions and related transformations. Their ease of preparation and flexibility of the catalyst design contribute to their growing popularity in the synthetic community.

Meet the Chemistry Department

Faculty, doctoral students and undergraduates talk about the department and their experiences at Washington University. From the outset, students get exposed to a broad range of expertise and fields. Interdisciplinary and collaborative research are strengths of this medium-sized department with considerable resources, instrumentation, and facilities.

Can We Sequester Carbon Dioxide

The Hayes and Conradi groups are collaborating on in situ high-pressure high-temperature NMR to monitor the reaction of CO2 as it converts to magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate. This work involves WU's Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization

Read more in this special issue of Environmental Science & Technology: Surface et al. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47, 119?125. DOI: 10.1021/es301287n

Seminars

Date	Event description	Operations
Oct 10	To Be Announced \| Prof. Jon Spanier (Drexel Univ.) McMillen 311 @ 4:00 pm
Oct 24	Weissman Lecture: To Be Announced \| James Norris, University of Chicago
Mar 13	Leopold Marcus Lecture \| Roger Tsien, UCSD TBA

Opportunities

April 12, 2013

Meet the Chemistry Department

August 21, 2012

Assistant Professorship Faculty Appointment

The Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis seeks to make a faculty appointment to begin in the fall of 2013 in any area of organic chemistry, including biological and materials chemistry. The position is available at the assistant-professor level.