Chemical and biological approaches to sequence controlled polymers

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Sequence controlled polymers (SCPs), linear macromolecules whose chemical and physical properties can be programmed with atomic-scale resolution, promise technological breakthroughs in novel materials, nanotechnology, and medicine. This technological promise provides ample motivation for development efforts towards their synthesis. However, at this time we are only able to synthesize limited kinds of SCPs, and our methods lack efficiency and they do not approach the accuracy, reproducibility, and control found in Nature. To address this challenge, this proposal describes the development of chemical (ring open polymerization) and biological (evolution of the translation apparatus) methods for the cost-effective and high yielding synthesis of sequence-defined vinyl polypeptides. Vinyl amino acids will be synthesized and incorporated into natural polymers, endowing biopolymers with new chemical functionality and serving as a model for synthetic of more complex template-directed SCPs.