Program Outline and Background
Throughout the course of science, nature has revealed its breadth time and time again. It seems that it never ceases to amaze and inspire mankind. In accordance with the ACS 2022 Spring Meeting theme "Bonding Through Chemistry", we would like to propose: "Bonding with Nature’s Proteins" as the theme for the spring 2022 graduate student symposium.
The field of protein chemistry has rapidly evolved – scientists from all fields of chemistry study proteins for multiple purposes. Proteins science has developed into an eminent interdisciplinary field where nearly all types of chemists collaborate. Fields such as spectroscopy, biologically active molecules, biomimetics, and reactive metal sites are just some of the many fields that have thrived from this interdisciplinary work. The focus of our proposal is nature’s proteins and how they extensively influence chemistry. Our plan is to divide our symposium into three main sessions:
- Approaches to studying protein structure and function,
- Approaches in the modification of proteins, and
- Approaches to translating proteins for bedside applications.
These three approaches are broad; however, we plan to highlight certain topics that will showcase the inspiration nature has given.
Under approaches to studying protein structure and function, we aim to fit in subtopics such as computational protein work, de novo design of proteins, theoretical work, as well as bioorganic and bioinorganic approaches to studying proteins, such as spectroscopy, natural production detection, proteomics. Under approaches in the modification of proteins, we aim to fit in subtopics such as include unnatural amino acid mutagenesis, biomimetics, peptide synthesis, and biocatalysis. Finally, under Approaches to translating proteins for bedside applications, we aim to showcase the technologies that have been developed from the study of proteins.
Our committee members are part of research labs with interests in these various fields of protein chemistry, making our network of scientists that we can invite for these sessions a very strong one. We want to ensure that in designing this graduate student symposium, we cater to the interest of a large population – we have confidence that we can do so with our proposed topic.
Our planning committee’s goals as the next GSSPC is to provide a symposium where academics and trainees are able to get a sufficient overview of how proteins, the small motors of biological systems, work to perform the chemistry of life. We hope that this 3-in-1 approach inspires the implementation of novel research ideas. We truly believe that a wider understanding of bonding through chemistry can be achieved by taking inspiration from proteins. In addition, given the interdisciplinary nature of our symposium theme, we hope to provide a space for chemists from different fields to mingle and form possible collaborations – great works come from different minds coming together. We also intend to capitalize on this by having networking breaks during the symposium.