Chemistry Department Faculty

Understanding complex biological systems and developing new tools to engineer them have been a central focus for both chemistry and biology. One of the main goals of our research program is to develop biomimetic synthetic molecules for the investigation and regulation of key biochemical processes taking place on the surface of and within a cellular system. In addition, we are also interested in developing next-generation sustainable materials to address the global environmental crisis caused by the widespread use of petroleum-based plastics. The research of our lab will adopt an interdisciplinary approach that spans organic chemistry, polymer sciences, bioconjugation, molecular evolution, and synthetic biology. In particular, we will focus on three research directions: (1) the development of sustainable polymers from renewable feedstocks, which are readily degradable, stimuli-responsive, or amenable to a circular economy life cycle; (2) the design and synthesis of glycomimetic synthetic polymers with unique architectures for the engineering of cell surface glycome; (3) the development of RNA-based synthetic biology tools for gene expression regulation using molecular evolution approaches.