Brief Summary of research: 

My interdisciplinary research interests range from total chemical synthesis of proteins,development of chemoselective reactions in protein chemistry, development of therapeutic
proteins, and understanding the function of little-studied human selenoproteins. Innovations in selenium chemistry, many of which are pioneered in my group, facilitate these projects.1 Some advances include preparing seleno-organic catalysts for oxidative protein folding,2 studying the effect of cysteine (Cys) to selenocysteine (Sec) substitution on both protein structure3 and folding pathways,3-4 uncovering new chemoselective reactions based on Sec reactivity,5-6 developing new tools for total chemical protein synthesis,7 and synthesizing and characterizing human selenoproteins (Figure 1).8 These and other ongoing research projects deal with basic scientific questions with far-reaching applications in chemical biology and medicinal chemistry.