Biomedical chemistry is a cross-disciplinary field that studies how organic molecules can be used to address medical problems. It combines chemistry and biological sciences to understand how chemical concepts can be used to fight disease. Biomedical chemists are medical scientists who apply chemical principles to research human diseases, their origins, and how to treat them. They also create and study new pharmaceutical drugs.

Fossil fuel and biomass combustion releases aerosols into Earth’s atmosphere which strongly absorb incoming solar radiation, contributing significantly to positive radiative forcing (global warming). Given the uncertainty on the extent of this warming effect by aerosols (Alexander et al., 2013), it is paramount that aerosol absorption be measured accurately for translation to reliable climate models.

In 1964, the late Philip Eaton successfully synthesized cubane, a molecule once thought impossible. And then in 1992, Eaton announced that cubane should be considered more than novelty. He suggested that cubane could be used to replace benzene in pharmaceuticals to improve the pharmacokinetic properties of the parent drug. Following this announcement, cubane was only seen sporadically in the literature.

The photochemical activity of nitroarenes was first reported by Ciamician and Silber in 1901 when the unusual rearrangement of 2-nitrobenzaldehyde to 2-nitrosobenzoic acid was disclosed.¹ The cyclization of photoexcited nitroarenes to ortho alkene and alkyne systems was described not long thereafter.^2,3 Subsequent work by Ward⁴ and others⁵ defined the reactivity of photoexcited nitroarenes as an

Heme enzymes mediate a plethora of paramount reaction pathways in a wide variety of organisms, including humans, wherein dioxygen activating heme enzymes are prevalent.^{[1, 2]} Interestingly, a number of pivotal geometric and electronic parameters in concert fine-tune such heme centers for their specialized reactivities, which strongly modulate the reactivity properties of their relevant reaction intermediates.

The atmosphere is a complex mixture of gases and aerosols that range in concentration from the sub-part-per-billion level up to many percent, and which vary with both time and space.  There are numerous analytical challenges associated with study of the atmosphere, and studies focused on understanding atmospheric chemistry have traditionally required numerous expensive, often custom-built instruments that are cost-prohibitive for many researchers.  Over the past decade, advances in consumer electronics and low-cost sensors hav

Raman Lasers are an interesting option for Resonance Ion spectroscopy. They rely on a Raman transition which is not limited by bound transition. This work demonstrates Raman lasers ability to be used for high resolution spectroscopy to observe atomic transitions. 

Natural products (NPs) are a proven and paramount source of novel drug leads due to their structural complexity and diverse bioactivities. This complexity arises from unique serial enzymatic transformations. In my talk, I will discuss the biochemical and structural characterization of several key enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of various natural products.