Past Event: 2025 Yale Chemistry & Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Lectures

We invite you to join us for the Yale Chemistry & Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Lectures in Chemical Biology Chemistry with Prof. Jeff Martell, Asssitant Professor of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dr. Jon Lorenz, Senior Research Fellow Process Chemist, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. 

3:30pm - Seminar with Dr. Lorenz: Process Safety and Inherent Safer Design in Early Development

Summary: The decisions we make towards route and process selections, impact the products for multiple years. Key to synthetic success on multi kilo scale is choosing simple, safe routes and reagents. Major changes are possible but are time consuming, costly and result in multiple supply chains until global regulatory acceptance is achieved. Inherently safer design is applied across the development timeline to address using toxic materials, high energy compounds, and ensure scale-up in the pilot plant without special measures or equipment. Fundamental to process success is application of creative synthetic solutions.

More information on Dr. Lorenz's research can be found here: Jon C. Lorenz's research works | Boehringer Ingelheim and other places

4:30pm - Keynote Seminar with Prof. Martell: Merging Abiotic and Biological Catalysis for Sustainable Synthesis and Chemical Biology

Summary: My group develops catalysts that merge the benefits of enzymes and abiotic chemistry. In one research area, we are using DNA as a nano-scaffold to accelerate reactions through pre-organization of multiple abiotic catalysts, akin to enzyme active sites but not limited to the natural amino acids and cofactors. I will describe our development of a platform to rapidly evaluate millions of DNA nanocatalysts using DNA barcoding and combinatorial synthesis, thus mimicking the process of directed evolution in discovering highly active abiotic catalyst systems. In our second research area, we are developing ultrahigh-throughput chemogenetic directed evolution platforms to enhance the activity of natural enzymes in abiotic contexts. I will describe our development of yeast display platforms to discover enzyme mutants with improved activity for diverse applications, including recycling of synthetic plastics and proteomic mapping in living cells.

More information on Prof. Martell's research can be found here: Martell Group

Faculty Host: Prof. Sarah Slavoff.

These seminars can be viewed online here: Panopto

Location: Sterling Chemistry Lab (SCL), Room 160