Integrated Calendar

More than 30 years ago, Richard Feynman outlined the visionary concept of a quantum simu-lator for carrying out complex physics calculations.
Today, his dream has become a reality in laboratories around the world. In my talk I will focus on the remarkable opportunities offered by ultracold quantum gases trapped in optical lattic-es to address fundamental physics questions ranging from condensed matter physics over sta-tistical physics to high energy physics with table-top experiment.

For example, I will show how it has now become possible to image and control quantum mat-ter with single atom sensitivity and single site resolution, thereby allowing one to directly im-age individual quantum fluctuations of a many-body system or directly reveal hidden topolog-ical antiferromagnetic order in the fermionic Hubbard model.
Finally, I will discuss our recent experiments on novel many-body localised states of matter that challenge our understanding of the connection between statistical physics and quantum mechanics at a fundamental level.

Signs of serotonergic dysfunction appeared more than 50 years ago with findings of hyperserotonemia in a subset of subjects with ASD, work replicated in multiple studies across the years, and accompanied by supportive data in human and animal studies. Owing to the early elaboration of serotonergic neurons in the mammalian CNS, and genetic evidence for male-specific linkage to ASD overlying the SERT gene locus, we screened multiplex ASD families for evidence of penetrant coding variants in the serotonin transporter, SERT, reporting these in 2005 and evidence that the most common of these, SERT Ala56, demonstrates alterations in the three core domains of the disorder when introduced into the mouse genome, in 2012. More recently, we have identified signaling pathways that lead to aberrant hyperactivity of SERT Ala56 in vitro and in vivo, leading to a novel therapeutic approach, involving manipulation of p38 MAPK. The talk will review the history of the work and next steps in understanding the serotonergic contribution to ASD features arising from other mutations and environmental perturbations.

Expeditious Synthesis of Bacterial Glycoconjugates
Suvarn S. Kulkarni
Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076
Bacterial glycoconjugates are comprised of rare D and L deoxy amino sugars, which are not present on the human cell surface. This peculiar structural difference allows discrimination between the pathogen and the host cell and offers avenues for target-specific drug discovery and carbohydrate-based vaccine development. However, they cannot be isolated with sufficient purity in acceptable amounts, and therefore chemical synthesis is a crucial step toward the development of these products.1 We recently established short and convenient methodologies for the synthesis of orthogonally protected bacterial D and L-deoxy amino hexopyranoside and glycosamine building blocks starting from cheaply available D-mannose and L-rhamnose.2-4 The one-pot protocols rely on highly regioselective nucleophilic displacements of triflates. These procedures have been applied to the synthesis of various bacterial glycoconjugates2-8 (Figure 1) as well as metabolic oligosaccharide engineering.7


1) Emmadi, M.; Kulkarni, S. S. Nat. Prod. Rep. 2014, 31, 870-879. 2) Emmadi, M.; Kulkarni, S. S. Nature Protocols 2013, 8, 1870-1889. 3) Sanapala, S. R.; Kulkarni S. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 4938−4947. 4) Sanapala, S. R.; Kulkarni S. S. Org. Lett. 2016, 18, 3790–3793. 5) Podilapu, A. R.; Kulkarni, S. S. Org. Lett. 2014, 16, 4336-4339. 6) Sanapala, S. R.; Kulkarni, S. S., Chem. Eur. J. 2014, 20, 3578-3583. 7) Clark, E.; I.; Emmadi, M.; Krupp, K. L.; Podilapu, A. R.; Helble, J. D.; Kulkarni, S. S.; Dube, D. H. ACS Chem Biol 2016, 11, 3365-3373. 8) Podilapu, A. R.; Kulkarni, S. S. Org. Lett. 2017, 19, 5466-5469.