McMaster University will continue to host undergraduate academic activities remotely for the Spring/Summer/Intersession term with only a few exceptions for courses that need student access to specialized equipment.
Chemical Biology at McMaster applies chemical techniques and tools to study and manipulate of biological systems. This includes studying interactions between small molecules and macromolecules (proteins and nucleic acids), and molecules of all sizes (polymers) with biological systems, including cells and whole organisms. Much of this work involves preparing, characterizing and delivering compounds (from small molecules all the way to antibodies) that might be used as drugs or diagnostics. We synthesize new complexing agents to deliver transition metals to specific organs in the body for use in radio-imaging such as MRI, PET scans, and other medical applications. We also develop analytical techniques for metabolomics research, and biosensors to rapidly diagnose infections.
Areas of specialty include:
Transition-state analysis in biochemical systems; enzyme mechanisms
Bioanalytical chemistry; fluorescence spectroscopy; biosensors
Bio-analytical chemistry; metabolomics; biomarker discovery; clinical chemistry; capillary electrophoresis/separation science; mass spectrometry; chemometrics/bioinformatics; bimolecular interactions; drug screening; newborn screening; population health; early detection/prevention of human diseases
Phospha-adamantanes in organopalladium cross-coupling reactions; carbenoid-based synthesis; synthesis of bioactive compounds
Natural Products: how cells make these antibiotics, and how they work; fooling the biosynthetic machinery into using non-natural precursors to make non-natural, natural products
Materials analysis by synchrotron based soft X-ray microscopy, instrumentation, fuel cells, in situ methods, electrochemistry, magnetotactic bacteria, 4D imaging
Organic Synthesis; Medicinal Chemistry; Natural Products; Organocatalysis; Transition-metal Catalysis;Total Synthesis
Pre-clinical molecular pharmacology of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer; intrinsically unstructured amyloidogenic proteins: protein kinases & signaling; functional protein dynamics and allosteric regulation; Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
Micro- and nanostructured materials fabrication, characterization and applications; nanocellulose surface chemistry; biosensors; super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, biomolecular interactions
Synthetic molecules to manipulate immunological protein assembly; avidity-based molecular recognition cell targeting approaches; protein and carbohydrate covalent affinity labelling strategies
Medicinal inorganic and radiopharmaceutical chemistry