Professor Robert M. Waymouth

Professor Robert M. Waymouth
Department of Chemistry
Stanford University
Abstract

New Catalysts and Processes for Organocatalytic Polymerization: From Catalysis to Functional Materials

We have developed a family of versatile organic catalysts for the living polymerization of lactone and carbonate monomers that have been integrated into efficient flow reactors for the programmed synthesis of block copolymer libraries. These synthetic methods spawned the development of a new concept for gene delivery based on a class of dynamic oligomeric cationic materials that are designed to self- assemble with polyanionic nucleotides to form coacervate nanoparticles. Charge-Altering Releasable Transporters are structurally unique oligomers that operate through an unprecedented mechanism, serving initially as oligo(α-amino ester) cations that complex, protect and deliver mRNA, and then change physical properties through a degradative, charge-neutralizing intramolecular rearrangement, leading to intracellular release of functional mRNA and highly efficient protein expression, both in cell culture and in animals. Selected applications of in-vivo mRNA delivery for cancer and COVID vaccination will be described.

Robert M. Waymouth

Professor Robert Waymouth is the Robert Eckles Swain Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. He received B.S. in Mathematics and B.A. in Chemistry from Washington and Lee University and his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the Caltech in 1987 with Professor R.H. Grubbs. He was a postdoctoral fellow with the late Professor Piero Pino at the ETH in Zurich in 1987 and joined the faculty at Stanford as an Assistant Professor in 1988. He received the Alan T. Waterman Award from the NSF in 1996, the Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science in 2009, and EPA’s Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 2012, the ACS Polymer Chemistry Award and the Herman F Mark Award. He has won several university teaching awards, including the Walter J. Gores Award, the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, and is currently a Bass Fellow in Undergraduate Education. His research interests are at the interface of Inorganic, Organic and Polymer Chemistry, in particular the development of new concepts in catalysis for the selective synthesis of both macromolecules and fine chemicals. Particular areas of interest include catalytic polymerization reactions, selective oxidation catalysis, the development of organocatalytic polymerization strategies and the design of functional macromolecules for applications in sustainable materials, biology and medicine.

Hosted by Professor Jessica Lamb