Dissertation: Designing molecules that fold and interlock in water (Delcourt)
Doctoral Researcher Dimitri Delcourt developed in his dissertation peptidic catenanes that incorporate biological building blocks such as arginine.
- These molecules can bind small RNA molecules (siRNA) and protect them from degradation, highlighting their potential as RNA delivery tools and analogues of cell-penetrating peptides, says Doctoral Researcher Dimitri Delcourt from University of Jyväskylä.
Engineering foldamers with tunable properties
The work also focuses on multi-stranded foldamers, synthetic molecules that form double or triple helices in aqueous solution. By tuning the balance of hydrophobic and charged components, the research shows how electrostatic interactions can control assembly, enabling predictable formation of specific helical structures.
- These findings provide a framework for designing water-soluble, self-assembling molecules with tailored properties, explains Delcourt.
From molecules to materials
The dissertation explores combining foldamers and catenanes into more complex architectures, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities of creating multi-crossing molecular systems.
- This research demonstrates how molecular design can be used to control self-assembly in water, opening new avenues for complex molecular architectures and potential applications in biomedicine and materials science, specifies Delcourt.
MSc Dimitri Delcourt will defend his doctoral dissertation “Sequence-Controlled Assembly of Multistranded Helices and Catenanes in Water” in the field of Supramolecular Chemistry at the University of Jyväskylä on Friday 31.10.2025 at 12:00 in Ylistönrinne Campus in lecture hall KEM4. The opponent will be Professor Bartosz Szyszko (University of Wrocław), and the custos will be Associate Professor Fabien Cougnon (University of Jyväskylä). The defence will be held in English.
The dissertation “Sequence-Controlled Assembly of Multistranded Helices and Catenanes in Water” is available online on the JYX publication archive: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-86-1048-9
