people
|Faculty
|Chris Schafmeister
 |
Chris Schafmeister Department of Chemistry |
Research:
Research projects within my group will use the tools of synthetic chemistry, molecular biology, and X-ray crystallography to answer important scientific questions.
A universal molecular scaffold. The development of a universal molecular scaffold that would allow the systematic design, construction, and investigation of macromolecules that display chemical functionality in three-dimensional space is a primary goal of my group. A scaffold like this will allow the design and synthesis of new catalysts, molecular sensors, and ultimately molecular machines. My group use synthetic chemistry to synthesize molecular building blocks that we will couple to each other through pairs of bonds to construct rigid macromolecules with diverse and programmable shapes. We have developed computer software that allows the computer aided design of these molecules to carry out specific functions.
For more details and images see our reseach page.
Awards
Cottrell Scholar Award, 2004; NSF CAREER Award, 2004-2009; Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award, 2000-2005; Research Corporation, Research Innovation Award, 2000-2002; Jane Coffin Childs post-doctoral fellow, 1998-2000; Howard Hughes Medical Foundation pre-doctoral fellow, 1993-1998
Selected Publications
"Maximizing the stereochemical diversity of spiro-ladder oligomers," Levins, C. G.; Brown, Z. Z.; Schafmeister, C. E., Organic Letters, 2006, 8, 2807-2810
"Flexibility and lengths of bis-peptide nanostructures by electron spin resonance," Pornsuwan, S.; Bird, G.; Schafmeister, C. E., Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2006, 128, 3876-3877
"The synthesis of curved and linear structures from a minimal set of monomers," Levins, C. G.; Schafmeister, C. E., Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2005, 70, 9002-9008
"Synthesis of a pipecolic acid-based bis-amino acid and its assembly into a spiro ladder oligomer," Gupta, S.; Das, B. C.; Schafmeister, C. E., Organic Letters, 2005, 7, 2861-2864
"Synthesis of a Bis-amino Acid that Creates a Sharp Turn," S.A. Habay, C.E. Schafmeister, Organic Letters, 2004, 6(19), 3369-3371
"The Synthesis of Functionalized Nanoscale Molecular Rods of Defined Length," C.G. Levins, C.E. Schafmeister, Journal of the Americal Chemical Society, 2003, 125, 4702-4703
"An all-hydrocarbon crosslinking system for enhancing the helicity and metabolic stability of peptides," C.E. Schafmeister, J. Po, G.L. Verdine, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2000, 122, 5891-5892
"A designed four helix bundle protein with native-like structure," C.E. Schafmeister, S.L. LaPorte, L.J.W. Miercke and Robert M. Stroud, Nature Structural Biology, 1997, 4(12), 1039-1046
"Structure at 2.5 A of a designed peptide that maintains solubility of membrane proteins," C.E. Schafmeister, L.J. Miercke and R.M. Stroud, Science, 1993, 262(5134), 734-738