报告题目 (Title)： Encoding Information in Oligourethanes

报告人 (Speaker)： Eric V. Anslyn

报告时间 (Time)：2024年05月11日 (周日) 10:00-10:30

报告地点 (Place)：校本部 乐乎新楼学海厅

邀请人(Inviter)：李 健 教授; 于 洋 教授

主办部门：理学院化学系

报告摘要：

Information is defined as the resolution of uncertainty. Human kind typically communicates information by a string of symbols in a pictographic, alphanumeric, or logographic manner. Nucleic acids encode information in the strings of chemical shapes and hydrogen-bonding patterns (heterocyclic bases), given the names of A, T, C, and G by humans. The sequence of the symbols is a blue-print for the production of proteins. It has recently been recognized that strings of other chemicals can be used as information, typically embodied in abiotic sequence-defined polymers. These polymers show promise as a new paradigm for data storage, manipulation, and expression. While their synthesis (i.e., writing) benefits from solid-phase methodologies, their sequencing (i.e., reading) is typically done via tandem-MS. But without a database of the possible abiotic sequences, tandem MS is often hard to read without prior knowledge of what has been written. To solve this, we devised a very simple method to both write and read information from oligourethanes. Our reading exploits an efficient chain-end degradation involving a 5-exo-trig cyclization. We convert any information to binary, then into the mathematical base represented by our oligourethanes via an ASCII-table, and in an automated reading reproduce the original data. We developed Mol.E-coder, a software tool that utilizes a Huffman encoding scheme to convert the character table to hexadecimal. As a proof of principle, an approach will be described using a text passage from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. It was encoded in oligourethanes and reconstructed via chain-end degradation sequencing. The passage was capable of being reproduced wholly intact by a third-party, without any purifications or the use of tandem MS, despite multiple rounds of compression, encoding, and synthesis. Overall, this presentation will highlight the interplay and utility of synthesis and sequencing in sequence-defined polymers.

报告人简介

Professor Eric V. Anslyn

University of Texas at Austin

Title: Professor

E-mail: anslyn@austin.utexas.edu

Address: Department Chemistry, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78737, USA

Website: http://anslyn.cm.utexas.edu/

Education

B.S., California State University Northridge, 1982;

Ph.D., California Institute of Technology, 1987.

Positions

National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University, 1987 – 1989;

Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin, 1989 - 1995;

Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin, 1995 - 1999;

Professor, University of Texas at Austin, 1999 - 2000;

University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Texas at Austin, 2000 - present.

Selected Honors and Awards

Cope Scholar Award, Granted from the ACS, 2006;

Centenary Prize, from the RSC, 2020;

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2024.

Research Interests

Mechanistic physical organic chemistry, supramolecular and materials chemistry, and more recently informatics.

Editorial Advisory Boards

J. Am. Chem. Soc., Manuscript Associate Editor, 1999 - 2019;

Supramolecular Chemistry, Editorial Advisory Board, 1999 - 2004;

J. Supramolecular Chemistry, Editorial Advisory Board, 1999 - present.

Selected publications（≤ 5）

[1] Nat. Methods 2021, 18, 604.

[2] J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 19187.

[3] J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 4017.

[4] Nat. Commun. 2022, 13, 6322.

[5] J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2022, 144, 17269.