Department of Chemistry
Seminar
9:45 a.m. Tuesday, January 20, 2015 • 331 Smith Hall
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Ellen Sletten, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Exploiting Orthogonality
in Chemical Biology
and Materials Science
Abstract
The development of functional group-specific, or orthogonal, chemistries is of long-standing interest
to chemists and has facilitated the synthesis of highly complex molecules. However, the demands for
orthogonal chemistry are significantly greater when one moves from a reaction flask to a living
organism or functional device. In the first portion of this seminar, I will discuss covalent chemical
reactions that can be rapidly performed on proteins, live cells and in living animals without disrupting
the surrounding environment. Reactions that meet these criteria have been termed “bioorthogonal”
and I will focus on two transformations: Cu-free click chemistry between azides and cyclooctynes,
and the ligation of quadricyclane and nickel bis(dithiolene)s. In the second part of the seminar, I will
describe how non-covalent chemical orthogonality can be applied to develop solution-based
fluorescent sensors. The fluorous phase, a dense, non-polar phase that separates from organic and
aqueous solutions, is used as a platform to create stable, yet dynamic, materials. Through the course
of this work, an array of fluorescent perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions with different surface properties
has been prepared. The facile self-assembly of emulsions with defined functionality poises these
materials to have far-reaching applications in sensing, in vivo imaging, and spray-on electronics.
Host: Theresa Reineke
Refreshments will be served prior to the seminar.