WebEx: https://rensselaer.webex.com/rensselaer/j.php?MTID=md3b049fa0473690b1744b6b4f9d1e174
Precise sequence and structural control is critical to the development of new functional, responsive and programmable materials. Motivated by these opportunities and the need for sequence-control and structural diversity in synthetic polymer research, I will present two versatile strategies for the assembly of sequence-defined macromolecules. In the first strategy, I will briefly introduce our work on the design and assembly of oligothioetheramides (OligoTEAs). As new macromolecular class, oligoTEAs are uniquely suited to design and create therapeutic drugs and delivery scaffolds due to their rapid synthetic assembly with precise sequence-control and a large collection of chemically diverse monomers. I will highlight a few examples where we’ve used oligoTEAs to design antimicrobial compounds, cell-penetrating macromolecules and antibody drug conjugates. In the second strategy, I will present new synthetic platform that overcomes the scalability issue that plagues the iterative assembly of sequence-defined macromolecules. This method facilitates the assembly of sequence-defined polyurethane macromers at the gram-scale. Data highlighting the effect of sequence on network topology, mechanical and optical properties will be discussed. Overall, this body of work should provide the foundation for future studies exploring the tunability of bulk material properties via sequence control.
Dr. Christopher Alabi began his research career as an undergraduate researcher in synthetic organic chemistry under the direction of Dr. David Schuster at NYU. Upon receiving his B.S. in Chemistry from NYU and B.E. in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, he went on to pursue a graduate degree in Materials Chemistry at California Institute of Technology with Dr. Mark Davis. He then moved to MIT in 2009 and served as NIH Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Langer and Anderson. Dr. Alabi joined the Cornell faculty in 2013 as an Assistant Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He has won several awards during his short tenure at Cornell including the PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Award, NSF CAREER Award, the 2016 Cornell Engineering Research Excellence Award, the 2017 Tau Beta Pi Professor of the Year Award and the 2018 PMSE Young Investigator Award. In 2019, Dr. Alabi was promoted to Associate Professor with Indefinite Tenure. Research in the Alabi lab seeks to understand how the composition and sequence of a macromolecular chain affects its chemical, structural and biological properties with an eye towards engineering sustainable materials and biomolecular therapeutics.