Mateusz Marianski

Mateusz Marianski received a MS from The University of Wroclaw and a PhD from The CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College. He did his postdoc at Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany. At Hunter College he teaches courses in physical chemistry and conducts research centered around structure formation and dynamics in carbohydrates.

Computational chemistry gives Professor Marianski an unparalleled ability to visualize, with atomic – or even electronic – resolution, the mechanistic underpinning of physical, chemical, and biochemical processes, and in effect, provide a crucial insight into most challenging questions in the development of novel therapeutic strategies, and chemical synthesis.

Professor Marianski’s research is focused around five main areas, three of which are connected by the theme of carbohydrates: 1) Mechanochemistry: Altering chemical reactions with a mechanical force; 2) Glycosylation: Improving stereocontrol of a glycosylation reaction; 3) Glycoanalysis: Understanding structure-function relationship in glycans; 4) Site-specific biolabeling: Designing new generation of site-specific labels of IgGs; and 5) Antivirals: Exploiting glycans as a target for novel antivirals.

• University of Wroclaw, Poland (MS 2009)
• CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College (PhD 2013)
• Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany (Postdoc. 2018)

Research Statement

The research interest at Marianski lab at Hunter College CUNY ranges from a single bond formation under applied mechanical force to noncovalent interactions between the most complex biomolecules in biology. The tools we apply to investigate these problems are tailored to the specific demands of these problems. For instance, investigating a bond formation process necessitates methods that explicitly consider the molecular electronic structure, such as Density Functional Theory (DFT). On the other end of the spectrum, understanding recognition between large biomolecules, such as binding of synthetic carbohydrate receptors to a glycan portion of a protein, merits methods of classical molecular simulations. Finally, some other problems, such as glycoside reactions in an enzymatic center under mechanical stress, will require both quantum and classical approaches merged in a QM/MM scheme.

See a list of publications.