A large effort is directed toward the synthesis of unnatural amino acid polymers. We are primarily concerned with ß-amino acids, where the backbone has been extended by a single methylene unit.

We have pioneered the design, synthesis, and utilization of cyclically-constrained ß-amino acids (ACPC, APC, ACHC and APiC are shown below.)

Our ß-amino acids have been shown to form stable helical structure in aqueous solvent with relatively short oligomers (6-8 residues). Oligomers of similar length composed of alpha-amino acids do not form stable helices.