Chemistry Staff Seminar Series Seminar

Dr Jon Watts

'Fluorinated oligonucleotides: High binding affinity and potent gene silencing'

The 2'-fluorinated oligonucleotides 2'F-RNA and 2'F-ANA are commonly used chemical modifications that yield therapeutic oligonucleotides with excellent properties. Sugar fluorination at the 2'-position leads to increased binding affinity, but the reasons for this stabilisation have been unknown until recently. I will discuss recent research that reveals surprising origins of this effect and implications for future research. I will also compare two classes of single-stranded oligonucleotides in terms of both their chemistry and their biological activity.

Marina Carravetta

"Applications of solid state NMR to materials"

Solid state NMR is a powerful technique to study materials lacking long range order. Good resolution is obtained by fast sample rotation, and experiments can easily be performed under a range of experimental conditions. We will present an overview over our solid state NMR research, including characterization of catalysts for a range of applications, variable temperature study of a catalytic process in situ, high temperature superconductors as well as methods development for nitrogen-14 NMR.