Conformationally Controllable Amphiphiles and Their Applications in Sensor Design

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With the support of this award from the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program Professor Yan Zhao will explore conformational control, which is at the heart of biology. The binding and catalytic functions of many protein receptors and enzymes are regulated through their controlled conformational changes. Therefore, being able to guide the conformational behavior of organic molecules is highly important to both fundamental and applied chemistry and biology. This research focuses on the bioinspired utilization of solvophobic interactions for conformational control of amphiphilic foldamers. The overall objective is to synthesize amphiphilic foldamers with well controlled folding/unfolding behavior and demonstrate their applications as a novel class of molecular sensors. The proposed foldamers can be synthesized from readily available materials. They have highly unusual properties including large ( 1 nm) hydrophilic internal cavity, controllable distribution of internal functional groups, nanometer-sized dimension, and tunable conformational stability. The foldamers proposed in this application will be converted into sensors that can detect metal ions, temperature changes, or small-molecule analytes. The proposed research is expected to have several broad impacts in chemical and pharmaceutical industries. For example, the proposed molecular sensors potentially can be used to detect molecular species including drug or drug metabolites, or heavy metals in environmental applications. In addition, the proposed biomimetic chemistry provides excellent trainings to graduate and undergraduate students involved in the research. Students will develop important skills in designing synthetic structures to mimic biological molecules. They will also be exposed to a wide range of research fields due to the interdisciplinary nature of the proposed work.