Procter and Gamble Lecture Series
Professor Jacqueline Barton
"DNA-mediated Signaling"
In mid-October 2008, the fourth iteration of our signature Procter and Gamble Lecture brought to the Department a world leader in bioorganic chemistry, viz. Professor Jacqueline Barton from the California Institute of Technology. Professor Barton presented an exciting talk entitled "DNA-mediated Signaling", which attracted an audience from across the CoSM disciplines as well as the Provost (a chemist), the Vice-President for Research (a biologist) and the CoSM Dean (a biologist). Planning for the 5th P&G Lecture is underway.
Dr. Jacqueline K. Barton is the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. . Barton was awarded the A.B. summa cum laude at Barnard College in 1974 and a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry at Columbia University in 1978. In the fall of 1989, she joined the faculty at Caltech. In 2009, she began her term as Chair of the Division.
Professor Barton has pioneered the application of transition metal complexes to probe recognition and reactions of double helical DNA. She has designed chiral metal complexes that recognize nucleic acid sites with specificities rivaling DNA-binding proteins. These synthetic transition metal complexes have been useful in elucidating fundamental chemical principles that govern the recognition of nucleic acids, in developing luminescent and photochemical reagents as new diagnostic tools, and in laying a foundation for the design of novel chemotherapeutics. Most recently, her research group has designed bulky metalloinsertors as site-specific probes of DNA base mismatches. Barton has also carried out seminal studies to elucidate electron transfer chemistry mediated by the DNA double helix. She first showed that oxidative damage to DNA can arise from a distance through charge migration through the DNA duplex. She furthermore established that DNA charge transport chemistry is exquisitely sensitive to intervening perturbations in the DNA base stack, as with single base mismatches or lesions. This chemistry has since been applied in the development of DNA-based electrochemical sensors and is being explored in the context of long range signaling of oxidative damage and repair within the cell.
