GOPI Hosahudya N., Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune, India
Architecting Remarkable Metal-Coordinated Networks through Peptide Foldamers
Biography:
Prof. Gopi obtained his Ph.D. from Bangalore University in 2000. He then moved to the Molecular Biophysics Unit at IISc in Bangalore, India, as a Research Associate, where he worked on peptide foldamers consisting of unnatural amino acids. In 2002, he moved to Northwestern University in Evanston as a post-doctoral fellow. Later, in 2004, he joined Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia as a Research Associate, where he worked on designing peptide-based therapeutics. In 2007, he joined IISER Pune as an Assistant Professor, and in 2018, he was promoted to the position of Professor of Chemistry. Prof. Gopi has established his research in the field of peptide foldamers composed of unnatural amino acids and their applications in drug discovery and biomaterials. His group has made significant contributions to the design of stable hybrid peptide helices, β-sheet mimetics, and b-double helices. Additionally, his group has elucidated the principles governing the folding of a,g-hybrid peptides. These folding principles were further demonstrated by designing foldamer antibiotics (antimicrobials), protease inhibitors, and inhibitors for protein-protein interactions. Furthermore, his group has pioneered the use of short structured peptides as metal coordination linkers, enabling the design of metal-helix frameworks, cages, and mimics of metalloproteins.