Brian Jameson, a Ph.D. student in chemistry, and his advisor, Dr. Rainer Glaser, professor of chemistry and interim vice provost of graduate education, have published articles in two peer-reviewed chemistry journals.

“Rotation-Inversion Isomerization of Tertiary Carbamates. Potential Energy Surface Analysis of Multi-Paths Isomerization Using Boltzmann Statistics” was selected by the editor of European chemistry journal ChemPhysChem as a cover feature and a cover profile. The results illustrate how the synergy of amino acid synthesis, 13C NMR spectroscopy and ab initio electronic structure studies provide unique insights into the dynamic stereochemistry associated with multi-paths E/Z rotation-inversion equilibria.

“Unnatural Lysines with Reduced Sidechain N-Basicity. Synthesis of N-trifluoroethyl Substituted Lysine and Homologs” is featured in the European chemistry journal ChemSelect. The authors report a highly efficient and flexible synthesis of unnatural lysines. The introduction of the N-trifluoroethyl group is the essential feature of these new unnatural lysines, and this feature enables carbamylation at significantly lower pH values. This work on unnatural amino acid synthesis is a part, and a major milestone, of a larger project aimed at the development of RuBisCO mimetic CO2 capture and release systems from air.