Our research interests lie in developing thermal and photochemical-Bergman cyclization reactivity in inorganic small molecules, porphyrins, and nanoparticle surfaces for carbon-based polymerization reactions, or as nature has taught us, biologically-relevant H-atom abstraction reactivity. While a considerable amount of our efforts are devoted to developing fundamental metal-catalyzed cyclization reactions, we have also applied these motifs to a subset of natural biopolymers such as plaques, fibrin clots and CO2. Our approach to these problems involves developing small molecule enediyne ligands that extract metal directly from the plaque (Cu, Zn, of Ca), or incorporation of diradicals-generating ligands into optically-active Au and magnetically responsive Fe3O4 nanoarchitectures. Small molecules with N4-coordination have been developed for disaggregation of amyloid plaques by in situ activation and radical-formation upon chelation of Zn(II) and Cu(II), while larger-payload nanoparticles that can be activated photo-thermally or by magnetic induction hyperthermia are applied to dissolve fibrin clots. This presentation will describe several chemical and applied aspects of this work including the synthesis of novel nanocatalysts for CO2 activation.

Activated diradicals: from small molecule bioreagents to nanomedicine applications and nanocatalysis of CO2

2019 Spring National Meeting

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