Department of Chemistry Seminar Announcement

1. Department of Chemistry Seminar Announcement About the Speaker Professor Sandeep Verma was born in Kanpur, grew up and completed his schooling in the holy city of Varanasi. He studied Organic Chemistry in Banaras Hindu University, where he secured First Rank in M.Sc. examination (1989) and was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Gold Medal and P.N. Bhargava Silver Medal for excelling in Organic Chemistry. He moved to University of Illinois Medical Center, Chicago, USA, for his Ph.D. (1994) in the area of anti-HIV drug design. After two successive postdoctoral stays at Johns Hopkins University, USA, and Max-Planck-Institute for Experimental Medicine, Germany, he joined IIT-Kanpur in 1997, where he is currently aProfessor in the Department of Chemistry. Prof Verma was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences in 2010. His research interests lie in the areas of nucleobase and peptide scaffolds as artificial enzymes and disease models, chemical origins of life and biopolymer-mineral composites as bone formation mimics. Abstract Biological superstructures are conventionally generated via recruitment of nanoscopic components in a “bottom-up” approach. In this context, amino acids, peptides and proteins, have received considerable attention for the construction of self-assembled entitites owing to their side-chain diversity, potential to form hydrogen bonds and other non-covalent interactions. We have contributed to ordered aggregation of peptide conjugates.1 These soft structures exhibit stability and high structural integrity and amenable to microfabrication using ion beams.1c This talk will present our recent observations and efforts to employ peptide-based soft structures as stimuli-responsive materials and as substrates for ion-beam mediated fabrication methods. References: 1. (a) J. Pep. Sci. 2011, 17, 148‐153; (b) J. Org. Chem. 2010, 75, 4280‐4283; (c) Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 2860‐2863; (d) Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 2217‐2221; (e) Chem. Eur. J. 2008, 14, 1415‐1419; (f) Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2007, 46, 2002‐2004; (e) J. Phys. Chem. B 2007, 111, 3750‐3757; (f) Chem. Commun. 2007, 2296‐2298. All are Welcome