Steven Cobb
Professor
Durham University
UK
Steven Cobb carried out his PhD with Professor David O’Hagan at St. Andrews University (2001-2005). His work focused on the biosynthesis of fluorinated natural products, in the bacteria Streptomyces cattleya. The highlight of this research was the identification of the first ever naturally-occurring C-F bond forming enzyme (Nature, 2002, 416, 279). Steven was awarded an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Fellowship and moved to the University of Alberta, to work with Professor John Vederas, FRS. During this time he was introduced to the field of peptide chemistry and he worked on the development of new peptide based antibiotics. In October 2007 Steven moved to the Chemistry Department at Durham University as a temporary lecturer, and from this position he was awarded a prestigious Ramsay Memorial Trust Research Fellowship (2008–2010). In 2010 he was appointed to the position of Lecturer and since then he has attracted research funding from various competitive sources as a PI including the Royal Society, the EPSRC, The Wellcome Trust, The Leverhulme Trust, UK industry and he was recently the successful PI on a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grant (one of only 100 grants award worldwide from over 2100 applications).
L21 - Applications of Fluorine in Peptide and Peptoid Science
As part of an ongoing programme of work to exploit the properties of fluorine in the field of chemical-biology we have investigated the effects that the incorporation of fluorine can have on both peptides and peptoids. Within this context we have designed new fluorinated peptoid monomers that can be used to control secondary structure1,2 and have utilised fluorinated reagents as a means of gaining access to novel peptide and peptoid scaffolds.3,4 More broadly we have applied the cheap commercially available fluorinated reagent, pentafluoropyridine, as a means of forming amide bonds5 and as a tool to control the regioselective functionalisation of peptides.6 A summary of the aforementioned topics will be presented.
References – [1] D Gimenez, G Zhou, MFD Hurley, JA Aguilar, VA Voelz, SL Cobb, 2019, Journal of the American Chemical Society 141 (8), 3430-3434; [2] D Gimenez, JA Aguilar, EHC Bromley, SL Cobb, 2018, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 57 (33), 10549-10553; [3] D Gimenez, CA Mooney, A Dose, G Sandford, CR Coxon, SL Cobb, 2017, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry 15 (19), 4086-4095; [4] D Gimenez, A Dose, NL Robson, G Sandford, SL Cobb, CR Coxon, 2017, Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry 15 (19), 4081-4085; [5] WDG Brittain and SL Cobb, 2021, Organic Letters, 23 (15), 5793-5798; [6] WDG Brittain, SL Cobb, 2020, Journal of Organic Chemistry, 85, 11, 6862–6871