In a collaboration with Paul Dauenhauer's group at the University of Minnesota through the NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers, we have developed a new strategy to deoxygenate hydrocarbons produced by microbial fermentation of glucose using simple Lewis acid catalysis.

Cassaignau and colleagues use NMR to reveal how a dynamic elongating nascent polypeptide interacts with the ribosome to modulate its folding (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-021-00796-x)

The origin of translation is one of the great mysteries of prebiotic evolution. We present an experimental system that shows how the earliest steps could have occurred.

Ring expansion to “grow” larger N-heterocycles often uses cycloaddition of strained aza-rings with π-bonds. Here, we report a formal cross-dimerization between three-membered aza-heterocycles and 3- and 4-membered-ring ketones, providing a straightforward means of assembling diverse N-heterocycles.