Fingerprints in chemical biology: focusing on mass and shape

Chemical biology is an important research theme in the Life and Biomedical Science focus area at the Faculty of Science of Radboud University Nijmegen. It involves both the development of specifically designed new molecules to study biological systems and the application of biological systems to make new molecules in an efficient and selective way. The research activities in the field of chemical biology continuously require the detailed characterization of molecules of synthetic and/or biological origin. Mass spectrometry is an established technique for the identification of small organic molecules and it has in recent years also been successfully applied to larger molecules like polymers, biomolecules, and their synthetic derivatives (bioconjugates). Circular dichroism, including UV-visible light absorption spectroscopy and fluorescence, is an established tool for the study of biomolecules, in particular for the determination of secondary and tertiary structure of proteins and peptides, and has recently also been successfully applied to synthetic materials and bioconjugates, including biocompatible polymers such as the polyisocyanides. Both characterization techniques are routinely used on a daily basis and are as such indispensible in a laboratory which is active at the interface of chemistry and biology. In this proposal the groups in the Molecular Chemistry Cluster of the Institute for Molecules and Materials (IMM) working on the research theme of Chemical Biology apply for funding of a mass spectrometer and a CD-spectrometer.