Pitt Chemist Recognized by NIH and NSF for Macromolecule Construction Research

PITTSBURGH—Christian E. Schafmeister, assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Chemistry, was recently awarded a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and received a $616,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Award. Schafmeister also was named a Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar, which comes with a $75,000 grant. These honors recognize Schafmeister's innovative approach to synthesizing molecular building blocks, which can be snapped together to form large molecules.

While chemists today can synthesize almost any small- and medium-sized molecule, it takes years of effort to synthesize large molecules. Large molecules are interesting because they can do things that small molecules cannot. The best example of this is biological proteins such as enzymes, the large molecules that carry out many of the processes of life. Enzymes, which are proteins large enough to contain pockets for enveloping other smaller molecules, speed biological processes by modifying smaller molecules.

Schafmeister's research group synthesizes small, rigid molecular building blocks called bis-amino acids and couples them through pairs of bonds called amide bonds to create complex, three-dimensional structures. The building blocks can be combined to have an enormous variety of three-dimensional structures, including those that contain pockets that can bind small molecules and sense or operate on them.

"It will be very valuable to be able to synthesize large molecules that have designed shapes because we could construct shapes that carry out valuable new functions," said Schafmeister.

In nature, single amino acids are attached to one another and form long chains, and then fold into complex three-dimensional shapes. Little is understood about how amino acids chains know the correct way to fold themselves to make a functional protein. "Predicting how a protein folds is like tossing a rope into the air and predicting what shape it will assume when it hits the ground. In our approach, we build rigid molecules that resemble twisted ladders and are inherently rigid, and so we don't have to worry about folding," said Schafmeister.

The group is working to develop fluorescent sensors and other molecular devices using this new technology.

Schafmeister will use part of the NSF and Cottrell funding to create software for use in organic chemistry classrooms. He is developing software that displays and manipulates molecule models in three-dimensions for use in chemistry lecture halls equipped with stereo projectors.

"One of the greatest difficulties that undergraduate students have in learning organic chemistry is in visualizing the three-dimensional nature of molecules based on their two dimensional representations," said Schafmeister. "Stereo projection equipment has recently become affordable enough to permit its installation in lecture halls, but the content and software is almost nonexistent."

Sponsored by Research Corporation, the Cottrell Scholar Award recognizes beginning faculty in the sciences who excel in teaching and research. The award commemorates Frederick Gardner Cottrell, founder of Research Corporation, chemist, and inventor of the Cottrell electrostatic precipitator.

The NSF Faculty Early Career Development Awards are made to junior-level university faculty to emphasize the importance NSF places on integrating research and education activities in academic careers.

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6/25/04/tmw