Chemical Biology uses the concepts and techniques of chemistry to understand the molecular basis of life and is one of the most exciting research frontiers in modern chemistry. The Chemistry Department has an exciting and dynamic program in this area, with faculty research interests ranging across the spectrum from chemistry to biology (biosynthesis, natural products, enzyme mechanism, enzyme discovery and functional annotation, directed evolution of enzyme active sites, protein chemistry, nucleic acid chemistry, imaging, design and testing of cell biology probes, structural biology, non-canonical amino acid incorporation, iron and vitamin metabolism, antibiotic development, epigenetics, and cancer). Since most of the students who join our division come with a strong background in organic, inorganic or physical/analytical chemistry, we teach a set of excellent lecture and laboratory courses to prepare our students for biological chemistry research.
