YAMATSUGU GROUP

Organic chemistry has been developed mainly for the purpose of producing desired molecules in test tubes. Although there are still many challenges to be solved, advanced chemical transformations are possible when targeting small molecules. However, when targeting peptides, proteins, or even cells, synthetic organic chemistry is extremely immature.

The Yamatsugu Laboratory is developing new synthetic chemistry that enables flexible chemical transformation of biomolecules such as proteins. By discovering a new reactivity that functions under physiological conditions (i.e., in neutral water at 37 °C), which is the reaction field of biomolecules, we create methods to chemically modifying proteins, creating and understanding their functions. We particularly focus on designing unique molecules and finding their unique reactivities.

2023/10/27 Prof. Yamatsugu gave MBLA 2022 award lectures in Europe and the US (LMU, Max-Planck Institute for coal research, ETH Zurich, Princeton Univ., Merck, MIT, Harvard Univ., Caltech, UC Berkeley, and Stanford Univ.).

2023/09/22  An article “A chemical catalyst enabling histone acylation with endogenous acyl-com” has been published in Nature Communications.

2023/09/19  New undergraduate students joined our team.

2023/06/23  We had nice lectures by Dr. Yoshihiro Sohtome and Dr. Tadahiro Shimazu (RIKEN).

2023/06/06  Nanaka Ishihara (M2) received Presentation Award at the 84th Symposium of the Kanto brunch of the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan, held on May 13.

2023/05/30  A Joint Usage/Research Project with Dr. Kounosuke Oisaki at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has been adopted.

2023/04/27   Our review on catalytic approaches to chemo- and site-selective transformation of carbohydrates has been published.

2023/04/24   Website opened!

2023/04/01   YAMATSUGU group launched!