U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research (Photoconversion/Photo- synthesis): The Design and Study of Photoreactive Metal Nitrosyl Complexes

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This award will support a two-year U.S.-Japan Cooperative Photoconversion/Photosynthesis Research Program project between Professor Peter Ford, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Dr. Mikio Hoshino, Solar Energy Research Group, The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Tokyo, Japan. The project will focus on the investigation of the fundamental chemistry of new metallo-organic compounds that are photochemical precursors to nitric oxide (NO) formation. Nitric oxide is a known cardiovascular dilator recently identified as the endothelium-derived relaxing factor in blood vessels and implicated as having an intercellular messenger role in mammalian neural transmission and in the activation of macrophages to the bactericidal/tumoricidal state. The collaboration will bring together the complementary talents and expertise of two very productive research groups in the United States and Japan to investigate the synthesis and photoreaction behavior of a variety of nitrosyl metal complexes with the long term (speculative) goal of understanding fundamental principles necessary for the design of new photodynamic therapy (PDT) drugs.