alexsolivan.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Proteins carry out exceptionally diverse molecular functions—even though they are all built on an unvarying polyamide backbone. How much more chemical diversity might be unlocked by editing that backbone? cen.acs.org/synthesis/se... #chemsky🧪

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

We start our first post on Bluesky with a firework! Very proud of a brilliant team to publish our work on C(sp3)-atom transfer @science.org. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... It has been a very exciting journey. Thanks @erc.europa.eu

submitted 10 days ago • 6 comments

Some good news: applications are open for the Weill Institute Emerging Scholars Symposium @ Cornell! Senior PhD students and, now, postdocs interested in networking & presenting their work in cell & molecular biology at Cornell should apply by Apr 14. Please repost! wicmb.cornell.edu/emerging-sch...

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Big fan of this work from the Kozlowski lab. My friends and I joke about it a lot but it’s funny how the more synthesis you do, the more you begin to enjoy/appreciate clever analytical strategies #chemsky doi.org/10.1021/acsc...

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

Hello Bluesky! Excited to join and share my postdoc work with Alanna Schepartz, Matt Francis and @cgemcci.bsky.social now out in JACS: Peptide Backbone Editing via Post-Translational O to C Acyl Shift. Proud of our team of undergrad & early grad students—Check it out! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

I am so excited for this opportunity! Also, very grateful to the support from past and current mentors—particularly my PhD advisor Jeff Long and my postdoc mentor Nathan Gianneschi, but also many others along the way.

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

✨ New from C-GEM in ACS Central Science: Thioesters Support Efficient Protein Biosynthesis by the Ribosome pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/... Congrats to Alexandra & Jacob, along with Isaac, Jess, @alexsolivan.bsky.social, @nxhamlish.bsky.social, Katie, Alanna, Jamie, and Scott! #NSFfunded @pubs.acs.org

submitted 27 days ago • 1 comment

just got the call. fired. i was the DEI coordinator at the department of chemistry. i was in charge of making all the olefins trans. (am i doing the meme right?) #chemsky

submitted 38 days ago • 6 comments

Really excited to see this amazing work out in ChemRxiv from our #ChemCollab between the @uwyoongroup.bsky.social @tehshik.bsky.social and #PfizerChemistry Photochem-mediated oxygen migration into sp3 bonds delivering small ring ethers as well as an OH - methylene transposition #ChemSky 1/

submitted 39 days ago • 4 comments

Friends, I'm pleased to draw your attention to two new preprints today describing complementary heteroatom insertion reactions into saturated carbocycles, one from our group and another from the Knowles laboratory. chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr... chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

submitted 39 days ago • 4 comments

Just explained to 11yo what it means to say amino acids are left-handed by sticking slivers of pizza on two forks and saying “If the crust is facing you, the fork is bent either left or right, but it was just chemists who decided the crust should be facing you and it has no deeper meaning” chemsky

submitted 53 days ago • 4 comments

Every time I am forced to download a word doc SI in the year 2025, an angel loses its wings #chemsky

submitted 53 days ago • 1 comment

✨ New from C-GEM in Nature Protocols: nature.com/articles/s41... This intact tRNA acylation assay discriminates acyl from non-acyl-tRNA, identifies rare acyl-tRNA species, and can quantify low-yield reactions. Congrats Riley, Isaac, Cameron, Sarah, Alanna! #NSFfunded @natureportfolio.bsky.social

submitted 55 days ago • 1 comment

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap on your CV? Chemist: Yeah, that's what's between the HOMO and the LUMO #chemsky

submitted 70 days ago • 4 comments

Cool paper from the Renata and Baran labs @science.org from @jakeyeston.bsky.social

submitted 73 days ago • 1 comment

A simple new protocol for the removal of alloc carbamate and allyl esters that can be run in open flasks with a moisture stable catalyst--compatible with solid and solution phase peptide synthesis and can be used with traditional small molecules #JOrgChem #ChemSky pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

WOW!!! Beautiful new Nature paper from Burkart Lab UCSD reveals how non-ribosomal peptide natural product synthetases work together. They use tetrazine click chemistry to capture these huge protein complexes mid-reaction. 3 different snapshots show different states. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

submitted 79 days ago • 3 comments

Engineering a ribozyme with aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase activity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.12.627959v1

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

Excited to share a major milestone! Our latest work unveils the first example of electron diffraction-guided discovery of natural products. This work represents a breakthrough in leveraging cutting-edge techniques to accelerate natural product discovery. #chemsky Preprint: tinyurl.com/yckd3sbr

submitted 80 days ago • 1 comment

True story: “Why would they do it like that? This other way is so much better…” 2 weeks later… “Ohhhhh…(slaps head)”

submitted 81 days ago • 2 comments

I love/hate when I’m replicating a paper and spot an easier route than the original one used because now I’m stuck trying to figure out if either A) they didn’t think of it and I’m super smart and clever or B) they did try it and it failed and I’m going to waste a week of my life trying it myself

submitted 81 days ago • 3 comments

Our Synthesis Tag (SynTag) for the synthesis of aggregating peptides and proteins is now published in JACS 🥳 Congratulations to first authors Héloïse & Elyse and everyone else involved ✨✨ pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

submitted 87 days ago • 0 comments

So excited to see this published! Thionucleosides can be incredibly challenging to make due to the need for oxidation state changes at sulfur during the synthesis. Collaborating with the Britton group, we’ve been able to make them using a short, selective sequence! pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

submitted 95 days ago • 6 comments

Very small RNA-reactive reagents can map RNA in crowded spaces in the cell - congrats to Dr. Lu Xiao! doi: 10.1016/j.chembiol.2024.09.009

submitted 97 days ago • 0 comments

New paper out of Katya Vinogradova’s lab! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

submitted 97 days ago • 1 comment

We are so back Where my other #chemtwitter #chemsky #chembio #chemicalbiology #realtimechem homies at?

submitted 98 days ago • 5 comments

Absolute all-timer for the lab quote wall from my student CJ the other day. "Well, time to stop washing glassware and actually face my problems" #Chemsky

submitted 100 days ago • 4 comments

Want to keep up with the C-GEM team? Check out our starter pack: go.bsky.app/Nck4k2K #chemsky #synbio #NSFfunded

submitted 100 days ago • 0 comments

New preprint on our method aa-tRNA-seq: chemically capturing aminoacylated tRNA molecules & pulling them through nanopores. It’s been a blast working with my collaborator Aleks Radakovic to take this from idea to promising pilot data to some looking exciting biology to chase down in future work.

submitted 104 days ago • 6 comments

Super cool to see my first grad school manuscript up on chemrxiv! In this work, we show that the ribosome is capable of catalysis with new types of acyl functional groups! Super thankful to be part of this amazing interdisciplinary team and be on the look out for more from CGEM! #chemsky

submitted 104 days ago • 0 comments

Here are alternatives to DCM recommended by our EH&S! #Chemsky

submitted 105 days ago • 0 comments

Missed out on a lot of the good light but it was nice to be back for a bit, Northwestern

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

One of the most ancient sequences in biology, the peptidyl transferase center of the ribosome, is not as conserved as we might have thought. #RNA #Ribosomes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

submitted 110 days ago • 1 comment

My limited experience with building balloon arches came in handy today for teaching orbital shapes to my General Chemistry students #ChemEd #ChemSky

submitted 109 days ago • 1 comment

Now online as an accepted article, a novel hypervalent iodine reagent that functions as a source of electrophilic "N". My first student, Patrick Kelly's swan song (now a postdoc with the Stahl lab), done in collaboration with scientists at GSK. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

submitted 110 days ago • 2 comments

Good news! I found a recent paper that solves a critical problem with my project! Bad news! This is going to be so so much more complicated than I anticipated!

submitted 114 days ago • 0 comments