Abstract

Free for everyone to attend. Someone will be standing by the Great Gate of Trinity College to let non-members of the college in.

Abstract: Synthetic chemistry can now make essentially any of the molecules found in biological systems, but so far has been less adept at recreating the complexity and exquisite selectivity characteristic of biomolecular function. In this lecture, Professor Jonathan Clayden will explain how structural and mechanistic inspiration from biology can be used to design non-biological molecules that lie outside of the evolutionarily accessible molecular lexicon but nonetheless take some steps towards recreating biological functions in communicating and translating information, in driving molecular motion, and in designing novel reaction pathways