The organic chemistry group primarily focuses on research areas at the interfaces with biology, catalysis, and materials. The answers to basic, fundamental problems in these areas are critical to many highly applied, societally important areas. Examples of hotly pursued topics here include the development of new light-emitting display panel materials for computers (luminescent and/or circular
polarizing molecules and materials), determination of nucleic acid sequences through photochemical probing, optimization of automated synthetic techniques for polypeptide synthesis, production of organic polymers with tightly controlled geometries and properties by appropriate catalysis, computational prediction of structures with desirable electronic or mechanical properties, development of bio-sensor materials ('molecular nose'), discovery of cheaper catalysts than the noble metals (to reduce drug synthesis costs), design and synthesis of molecular magnetic and electronic materials, and production of new, nano-structured systems for electro-optical and materials design.

Faculty and students with organic interests are greatly assisted by our department's long tradition of interdisciplinary work and collaboration. Major campus collaboration is particularly strong with faculty from Physics, Polymer Science & Engineering, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. Off-campus collaborations range from Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom in Europe, to Argentina and Brazil in South America, to China, India, and Japan in Asia. Because of the wide range of available expertise, organic-oriented student do more than just learn how to synthesize molecules. They learn how to design them, analyze them, and probe their interactions at the most minute molecular level. Such interdisciplinarity of training is a great draw for potential employers, and we are proud that students trained in the organic groups have done extremely well in both academic and industrial jobs.

Overall, the organic facultyare strong in both research and teaching, and so provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to become acquainted with both future scientific directions and applied interests in organic chemistry and its many related areas such as materials science, biochemistry, organometallics/catalysis, medicinal chemistry and pharmaceuticals, polymer science, nanoscience and nanotechnology, and supramolecular chemistry.

For participating faculty see Research Matrix.