Students in the Schwabacher group gain broad experience in organic chemistry. Projects usually begin with multistep synthesis, and continue by studying the resulting molecules using various chemical and biochemical techniques. Our work aims to understand and replicate the dramatic capabilities of biological molecules. Recognition and selective binding of one molecule by another is a key behavior of biological molecules that leads to most of their interesting and useful properties.
Most drugs are simply molecules that bind selectively to a specific molecular site.
An enzyme's ability to catalyze a reaction forming only one enantiomer of a product can be described as a selectivity for binding to the transition state leading to that product. Molecules that bind are useful as pharmaceuticals and for separation, transport, analysis, nanoscale structural organization, and catalysis. Antibodies that can recognize and bind tightly to a single molecular species are extremely valuable. They are broadly used in medical diagnostic testing and for identification in research settings. For all these reasons, we consider the study of binding to be significant.