Speaker: Yang Yang, Assistant Professor, University of California Santa Barbara
Title: New Strategies for Stereoselective Radical Biocatalysis
Dr. Yang received his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry in 2016 under the guidance of Prof. Steve Buchwald at MIT. In the Buchwald lab, he developed CuH-catalyzed methods for the asymmetric hydrofunctionalization of simple olefins. As an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow working with Prof. Frances Arnold at Caltech, Dr. Yang studied biocatalysis and protein engineering and developed biocatalytic asymmetric C–H amination. Dr. Yang started his independent career in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California Santa Barbara in 2020. By integrating synthetic chemistry, biocatalysis, protein engineering and computational tools, the Yang group is reprograming nature’s biosynthetic machineries to address challenging problems in synthesis, catalysis and biomolecular engineering. The Yang group recently coined and implemented two new strategies to advance novel stereoselective biocatalytic reactions, including metalloredox radical biocatalysis and pyridoxal radical biocatalysis. Dr. Yang is a recipient of the
Regent’s Junior Faculty Fellowship Award (2021), Faculty Career Development Award (2022), NSF CAREER Award (2022), NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (2022), Thieme Chemistry Journals Award (2023), Army Research Office Young Investigator Award (2023),
Packard Fellowship (2023), Sloan Research Fellowship (2024), Amgen Young Investigator Award (2024) and DOE Early Career Award (2024).
