Reports: SE
48840-SE (I) Pfizer Award Symposium in Honor of Carsten Krebs (II) Unnatural Amino Acids: Changing Nature's Catalytic Repertoire, (III) Nucleic Acid Chemical Biology at the ACS National Meeting, August 17-21, 2008, Philadephia, PA
The ACS Division of Biological Chemistry sponsored three symposia at the 236th national meeting in Philadelphia that revolved around a theme of understanding and enhancing the scope of enzyme catalysts. These sessions, which were part of a larger program consisting of twelve symposia and poster sessions, were attended by nearly 800 scientists from the US, Europe and Asia, and presented a unique opportunity to disseminate state-of-the-art fundamental research in the area of catalysis and enzyme design. The relevance of enzyme catalysts to petroleum field extends from the potential of these powerful agents to transform basic hydrocarbons into useful products in an efficient, economical and environmentally friendly manner. The three symposia reflected different fundamental approaches to this common purpose.
The Pfizer Award Symposium in Honor of Carsten Krebs focused on the chemistry of high-valence iron, and its application to oxidation of various hydrocarbon compounds. The invited lectures covered hydrocarbon oxidation by the catalytic intermediates in soluble methane monooxygenase from Methylococcus capsulatus, combined theoretical and experimental studies of the reaction intermediates in the TauD enzyme, synthetic precedents for high-valent nonheme iron intermediates in biology, and Fe(IV)-Oxo intermediates in mononuclear non-heme enzymes. One-hundred and fifty students and scientists attended this session.
The second symposium, Unnatural Amino Acids: Changing Nature's Catalytic Repertoire focused on research to expand the stability, catalytic power, and substrate spectrum of enzyme catalysts with the long term aim of developing new catalysts with increased utility in catalytic applications. Topics covered the innermost trisaccharide of N-linked glycoproteins and its role in accelerating folding and enhancing stability, chemical approaches to testing the Histone Code hypothesis, methods for the ascertaining the molecular determinants of substrate recognition and catalysis in the sortase A transpeptidase, and approaches to ribosome engineering and deciphering post-translational codes. One-hundred students and scientists attended this session.
The third symposium on Nucleic Acid Chemical Biology centered on basic research into the design of new nucleic acid bases that will allow the expansion of the genetic alphabet to include the coding of unnatural amino acids for increased catalytic power in enzymes. Talks centered on problems, solutions, and applications of artificial genetic systems, DNA base replacements with biological function, unnatural base pair systems for expansion of the genetic alphabet, and efforts toward expansion of the genetic alphabet. Seventy-five students and scientists attended this session.
