Progress Toward Anti-microbial Polymers: Adventures in Small Molecule Synthesis and Polymer Synthesis
Student: Harrison Koller, Weijun VanLith, and Isabel Wood
Major: Biochemistry
Mentors: Dr. Brooke Van Horn
Department: Chemistry and Biochemistry
Progress Toward Anti-microbial Polymers: Adventures in Small Molecule Synthesis and Polymer Synthesis
The Van Horn research lab aims to prepare biodegradable polymeric materials for many applications, including polymers with anti-microbial character conferred from the attachment of a specialized small molecule. In this presentation, a general description of the progress made in Summer 2020 toward the modification of a hydantoin small molecule to its hydroxylamine derivative will be described. Some preliminary data from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy will be shared to support the success of our synthesis. In the 4 short weeks we have been safely allowed back to campus for summer research during COVID-19, we have completed 80% of our SURF grant goals and scaled up the amount of hydroxylamine-hydantoin on hand for the next step, attachment to the polymer. We hope to begin testing of the functional polymeric materials with our collaborators at Clemson University in Fall 2020.