Smart chemical tools for biology and medicine.

Research in our lab focuses on the development of new chemical tools for biological and medical applications. Philosophically, we take the view that many problems in biology are at heart problems in mechanistic physical organic chemistry. Using a joint theoeretical/experimental approach, we design and synthesize chemical tools for biological applications, including fluorescent probes for dynamic live-cell imaging, chemical amplifiers, and mediators for targeted drug delivery. On the basic research side, we investigate the reactivity and properties of short-lived reactive intermediates in solution using high-level computational studies in combination with pulsed laser spectroscopy.