Saumen Chakraborty
Assistant Professor Of Chemistry And Biochemistry of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Phone Number: (662)915-7301
Email: saumenc@olemiss.edu
http://chemistry.olemiss.edu/saumen-chakraborty/

Key Words: Protein/enzyme design, metalloproteins, foldamers, antimicrobial therapeutics, fuel cell, bionano materials, self-assembly

Research Description: The Chakraborty group's research program interrogates scientific questions that lie the interface between biochemistry, inorganic chemistry and bionano materials science. Nature carries out biochemical reactions of catalytic and therapeutic interest, with exquisite selectivity and efficiency often employing a variety of prosthetic groups including metal ions, metal cofactors and metal clusters organized in predefined architectures. Learning from nature our group aims to combine the bio components (proteins, peptides, and DNA) and inorganic/materials components (metals, cofactors, and metal clusters) to design entities with novel functionalities and architectures unprecedented in nature. Such hybrid designed systems have promising solutions to many global challenges such as energy (fuel cells) and healthcare (antimicrobial therapeutics). Within this scope we intend to design and explore applications in the following research areas: 1) design bio-foldamers that can assemble into novel quaternary structures (like protein-based MOF) and use them for antimicrobial therapeutics, and as platforms for biocatalysis at protein-protein interfaces; 2) design hybrid catalysts by encapsulation of cofactors within rationally designed protein scaffolds; and 3) design, synthesize, and characterize ultrasmall gold nanoclusters using DNA and peptides as ligands to employ them as electron transfer catalysts for development of enzymatic fuel cells, as nanoreactors, and for targeted drug delivery, respectively. We are actively looking for highly motivated undergraduate students to become a part of our research team. Students interested in exploring our research please contact Dr. Chakraborty at saumenc@olemiss.edu

Honors Theses:

Pedigo, Walker Nelson (2022) Retro-Structural Analysis of the Four Helix Bundle Motif in Binuclear Proteins

Smith, Maggie Nicole (2022) Retro-Structural Analysis of the Four Helix Bundle Motif in Binuclear Proteins

Surakanti, Aditya Reddy (2022) Synthesis of the Alpha Domain of Metallothionein for Hydrogen Production (full text)

Le, Thuy Hien (2021) Artificial De Novo Tetramer Hydrogenase Mimic, Co-Metallopeptide Titration, and Photocatalysis (full text)

Crane, Skyler (2020) Crystallization Efforts for an Engineered Nickel-Binding Protein, Gold-Bovine Serum Albumin Nanoclusters, and an Artificial De Novo Tetramer Hydrogenase Mimic (full text)

Holmes, Kaylee (2020) A Study of the Antioxidant Versus Pro-Oxidant Nature of the Amyloid Beta Peptide and an Analysis of the Natural Products, Isorhamnetin and Narignenin, as Antioxidants (full text)

Covington, Richard (2019) Studies on Luminescent Gold and Platinum Nanoclusters for Biological Sensing and Catalysis (full text)

Keel, Greyson (2019) Protein Templated Silver Nanoclusters (full text)

Wills, Emory Elizabeth (2019) Hydrogen Production by His Mutants of Artificial Hydrogenase (full text)

Sumner, Leigh (2018) Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reduction Studies on Gold Nanoparticles (full text)