Topic: New Chemistry on Conventional Materials
Speaker: Prof. Jianjun Cheng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Time: 15:00, Jan 4, 2018
Venue: Room 502, Building of State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, Wushan Campus
Abstract: I will present two projects. First, I will present our work around helical polypeptides. I will report our design of helical, charged polypeptides, which has shown excellent cell membrane activity. These polypeptides have been broadly used in drug and gene delivery, cell membrane penetration and design of antimicrobial agents. I will then present our recent finding of helicity regulation via side chain hydrogen bonding. By controlling the hydrogen bonding donor and acceptor properties, we can precisely tune the helicity of polypeptides. I will report the integration of ring-opening metathesis polymerization and ring-opening polymerization of the amino acid N-carboxyanhydride to allow facile synthesis of brush-like polymers containing polypeptide brush. Cooperative polymerization of amino acid N-carboxyanhydride was found and the polymerization of controlled by the brush polypeptide helices. In the second portion of my talk, I will present sugar molecule mediated in vivo cancer targeting. We successfully developed azido-sugar derivatives that can label triple negative breast cancer and enable successful in vivo targeting.