Oyindasola Oyelaran

Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Education

• Salem College , B.S. 1997
• Harvard University, Ph.D. 2005 (Advisor: Matthew D. Shair)
• National Institutes of Health, Postdoctoral Fellow, 2006-2009 (Advisor: Jeff Gildersleeve)

Contact Information

• Office: Bronfman Science Center, Room 327 (413) 597-4417
• Lab: Bronfman Science Center, Room 328-329 (413) 597-2204
• E-mail: Oyinda.Oyelaran@williams.edu

Courses

• 251: Organic Chemistry: Advanced Section
• 112: Chemistry of Tropical Diseases: Charting the Course from Traditional to Modern Medicines

Honors Research Students

• Alyson Hoffman '10

Selected Publications

• Oyelaran, O.; Gildersleeve, J. C.  "Evaluation of human antibody responses to keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH) on a carbohydrate microarray" 2009, accepted.
• Oyelaran, O.; McShane, L. M.; Dodd, L.; Gildersleeve, J. C.  "Profiling human serum antibodies with a carbohydrate antigen microarray"J. Proteome Res., 2009, 8, 4301.
• Oyelaran, O.; Gildersleeve, J. C.  "Glycan arrays: Recent advances and future challenges" Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol., 2009, 13, 406.
• Oyelaran, O.; Li, Q.; Farnsworth, D.; Gildersleeve, J. C.  "Microarrays with varying carbohydrate density reveal distinct subpopulations of serum antibodies" Journal of Proteome Research, 2009, 8, 3221.
• Gildersleeve, J. C.; Oyelaran, O.; Simpson, J. T.; Allred, B. "Improved Procedure for direct coupling of carbohydrates to proteins via reductive amination" Bioconjugate Chem., 2008, 19, 1485.
• Oyelaran, O.; Manimala, J.; Gildersleeve, J. C. "Array-based techniques for glycans: development and application" In Wiley Encyclopedia of Chemical Biology; Begley, T. P.; Ed.; John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008; Vol. 1.
• Oyelaran, O.; Gildersleeve, J. C. "Application of carbohydrate array technology to antigen discovery and vaccine development" Exp. Rev. Vac., 2007, 6, 957-969.

Research Interests

My research interests combine aspects of organic synthesis, chemical biology, and bioorganic chemistry: studying ways in which organic chemistry can be used as a tool to address biological questions.  I am specifically intrigued by the chemistry and biology of carbohydrates, an important, yet largely underappreciated, class of biological molecules that perform numerous functions in living organisms.  Research in my lab focuses on understanding the role of carbohydrates in diseases, for example, severe malaria, and how one might inhibit undesired carbohydrate-protein interactions.   Projects in my lab include (1) synthesizing multivalent carbohydrate compounds having varying architecture and (2) performing assays to evaluate the effect of compound architecture on inhibitory capacity.  Initial projects will involve synthesis of glycodendrimers and other multivalent carbohydrate molecules, expression of a key protein implicated in the development of severe malaria, characterization of this protein by affinity chromatography and microarray analysis, and evaluation of how the synthetic carbohydrate molecules can inhibit interaction of this protein with its natural carbohydrate ligand.