CAREER: From Biomimetic Reaction Platforms to Nanostructured Artificial Enzymes

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This CAREER award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor Hongcai Zhou at Miami University in Ohio to build coordination networks containing heterobimetallic reaction centers. Using structure/property relationships of metalloenzymes to guide construction of metal-centered reaction-platforms inside of nanochannels in porous coordination polymers will provide new materials for use in catalysis. Biomimetic reaction platforms with paddlewheel molecular frameworks and nanostructured artificial enzymes will be constructed with support provided by NSF. The interface between nanotechnology and bioinorganic reactions will be central to both the research project and to a new course for undergraduate and graduate students. An additional outcome of the new academic year course will be a summer workshop addressing both nanotechnology and bioinspired synthesis, and the workship will be open to high school students and led by students from Miami University. The capabilities of natural enzymes provide examples of complex molecular structures designed to selectively catalyze important biological reactions. This project will use concepts evident in enzymatic reactions to guide the synthesis of metal-organic materials with properties resembling those of reaction centers in proteins.