Achievement

Jessica Kramer (Deming group) has worked on the design and preparation of new glycosylated-L-lysine-N-carboxyanhydride (glyco-K NCA) monomers and their polymerization. These monomers employ C-linked sugars and amide linkages to lysine for improved stability without sacrificing biochemical properties. These materials will be potentially useful as materials with capability for biological recognition. Jessica was able to synthesize three new glyco-K NCAs, purify them, and found they undergo living polymerization using transition metal initiation. These were the first reported living polymerizations of glycosylated NCAs, and were used to prepare unprecedented well-defined, high molecular weight glycopolypeptides. With this work, Jessica solved many long standing problems in the direct synthesis of glycopolypeptides from NCAs relating to monomer synthesis, purification and polymerization, and she was able to obtain polypeptides with 100% glycosylation and high molecular weights.