Watkins lectures in chemistry planned Nov. 7-8 Watkins lectures in chemistry planned Nov. 7-8

David A. Tirrell, the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, will give two Watkins lectures in chemistry at 3:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, in 224 McKinley Hall, and 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, in 209 Hubbard Hall.

The technical lecture on Nov. 7 is titled "Reinterpreting the Genetic Code: Non-Canonical Amino Acids in Protein Design, Evolution and Analysis."

The Nov. 8 lecture will be "Proteins that Nature Never Made." This lecture is open to the public, and everyone is encouraged to attend.

Tirrell's research uses protein chemistry, molecular biology, organic and materials chemistry approaches to develop artificial synthetic biological materials that have enhanced stability, or that can be used for cell imaging and identification. Tirrell's contributions to macromolecular chemistry have been recognized by his election to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.