trantteam.ca – Trant Team

Introduction to the Trant Team

We are a synthetic bioorganic/materials group focused on applying the tools of synthetic organic chemistry to the challenges of biology, medicine and materials science.Our chemistry involves developing new unnatural amino acids and carbohydrates and making more stable artificial oligosaccharides and peptides for immunological and anti-cancer applications, and using these biomaterials as the basis for new classes of sustainable materials for a variety of applications including smart drug-delivery, environmentally benign plastics, and for use as nano probes for medical diagnostics. Our team includes synthetic chemists, computational chemists, analytical chemists, supramolecular and nanoscale chemists and engineers, biologists, biochemists and materials scientists! We have broad interests in science.

Areas of Research Interest

Peptide and Amino Acid Chemistry

We are using the tools of synthetic and computational chemistry and molecular biology to make new “custom” amino acids for various challenges in immunology and medicine.

Carbohydrate Chemistry

We are very interested in making artificial carbohydrates, “acetal-free” carbohydrates that are far more stable in biological conditions than the natural sugars.

Materials Chemistry

We are interested in making new materials based on the biomolecules for a variety of environmental, medical and consumer applications.

We are using synthetic organic chemistry in combination with computational techniques to design and make interesting new carbohydrates, peptides and polymers for biological, supramolecular, immunological, material and medical applications. We are particularly interested in projects that involve a multidisciplinary strategy at the interface of chemistry, materials science and biology.

Academic and Industrial Collaboration

We are always interested in applying our expertise in bioorganic chemistry to other challenges. Interested academic and industrial partners are encouraged to contact Dr. Trant to explore possible areas of mutual interest and benefit. For Canadian industrial partners, further financial support may be obtained through a joint proposal to MITACS or NSERC Alliance

Recent Projects

Click on the projects for details!

Batteries and Materials Modelling

We like modelling things. If we can understand the underlying physical forces between molecules, we can design next generation batteries, catalysts, and reactions! Plus, fundamental physical chemistry is fun. And we learn a lot about more complicated systems that we can apply to our other work by doing this!

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Triggerable, Targetable, Traceless Drug Delivery

We are working on making the “universal” drug delivery particle. Something that is stable until it is triggered, something that only goes to specific cell types, something that leaves no trace once it has delivered its cargo. This would lead to being able to delvier very small amounts of chemotherapeutics only to cancer cells, avoiding the side effects. Sounds like Sci-Fi? It’s just chemistry!

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Making Drugs!

Almost everything we do is organic synthesis! We make new molecules, and most of our focus is in “medicinal chemistry” the science of designing, preparing and testing drugs (we like doing all three). This involves computer design working with teams at the chemistry bench, and teams working in our bio lab. It’s really the core of what we are all about! Our first syntheses are still coming, but for some of John’s previous work:

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Designing Peptide Drugs to Treat Autoimmune Diseases

What if we could stop the underlying mechanism that causes autoimmune diseases like Multiple Sclerosis, Arthritis, Diabetes, or Celiac disease? That’d be cool. And useful. By designing artificial amino acids tailor made to fit pockets on specific proteins, we can move towards this goal. Combining peptide engineering, protein expression, and complex computational medicinal chemistry/structural biology, we are well on our way to testing our hypothesis!

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Ring Shaped Molecules Are Fun

We have fallen in love with cavitands, ring-shaped molecules with a hole in the middle. The things we can do with these toys is almost endless! This pic is from our study where we designed them to bind pyrophosphate in water with ridiculous affinity. We are now using them to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria! And we are working on using them to make minimum enzymes…As I said. Rings ARE FUN!

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Open Positions

I am currently accepting applications for PDF positions, but only if the candidate only has their own funding in place; we are not recruiting PDFs using our funding at this time. Click on the title to learn more.

Synthetic/Medicinal/Process Chemistry

We are particularly interested in postdocs who have significant organic chemistry experience.

Meet The Team

Science is never done by one individual, you are only ever as good as your team. And this is a great team.

@Trantteam Twitter

Latest posts from our twitter

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 2 hours ago

Recorded first talk for CCCE. Uploading. Started to give it a listenback. I just can't. I hate my voice so much. So. Rolling the Dice.

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 3 hours ago

RT @chembioBryan: My incredible @UChiChemistry colleague Chuan He (not on twitter) found a way to perturb RNA regulatory pathways to make e…

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 3 hours ago

@TomislavFriscic @filip_to @TH_Borchers @hatemtiti85 @mcgillu @McGillChemistry @angew_chem I love papers like this. Skimmed, will have to look more carefully soon. Congrats! Obviously a challenging project.

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 10 hours ago

After all, the important thing is deciding which route to take up the mountain, and deciding which mountain to climb. I like the scouting, but I know that I am not the best tool for this. Resistance is clearly Futile.

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 10 hours ago

Except it will do it in five minutes or an hour instead of 2 weeks. And it knows more possible transformations than I do. And it can give me lit precedents for each logical step. I am really looking forward to trying it. And accepting that the machines are here.

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 10 hours ago

But I am sure we are going to miss things. I see it as the equivalent of my huge posterboard mockup retrosynthetic analyses I used to do (draw a small molecule in the middle of a giant 3x4 foot piece of paper, and disconnect in all directions).

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 10 hours ago

So we have all sorts of awesome, "absolutely no risk" retrosyntheses we have designed. But we all know how that goes. And so we have sought help. From our new machine overlords. Our Synthia license begins very soon. Of course we don't need it. Of course...

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 10 hours ago

So, as part of the whole "We need Help" thing, we will be making a ton of new molecules that our team has designed. Many of these are new scaffolds. Like nothing greater than 50% on Scifinder similarity search. Now, we are all Very Stable Geniuses in the Trant Team,

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 12 hours ago

RT @DanRather: I prefer watching the launches of independent bookstores. They’re a lot more entertaining. And they actually occupy space.

John Trant; Banana Belt Chemist 12 hours ago

RT @DFisman: I cannot imagine that we’re going to let a small and unreasonable minority hold back our economy and trash our healthcare syst…

Welcome to The Trant Team

Introduction to the Trant Team

Areas of Research Interest

Peptide and Amino Acid Chemistry

Carbohydrate Chemistry

Materials Chemistry

Academic and Industrial Collaboration

Recent Projects

Batteries and Materials Modelling

Triggerable, Targetable, Traceless Drug Delivery

Making Drugs!

Designing Peptide Drugs to Treat Autoimmune Diseases

Ring Shaped Molecules Are Fun

Open Positions

Synthetic/Medicinal/Process Chemistry

Meet The Team

@Trantteam Twitter

Keep In Touch