Chemistry in Pictures: See the vial for the trees

After synthesizing this indenothiazepinone derivative, Mohamed A. Seleem noticed the branching, tree-like design it made on the walls of this vial. Seleem is a PhD student in the lab of Martin Conda-Sheridan at the University of Nebraska Medical Center studying the antimicrobial activity of this group of compounds against microorganisms like the ones that cause malaria and chlamydia. The structure of the protein that these researchers think they are targeting, ClpX, still has not been solved, so they are modifying the indenothiazepinone molecules and testing their activity against ClpX to see if they can tease out how the protein works and how it’s structured.

Submitted by Mohamed A. Seleem

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