CAREER: Kinetic Self-Sorting of Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries

在这项由化学系大分子、超分子和纳米化学计划资助的项目中，休斯顿大学的奥尼扬·米尔贾尼克将开发全合成自组织化学系统，并研究它们在制备大分子化学中的应用。方法是利用被称为动态组合文库的自由平衡化合物的混合物，通过放大其最适合给定刺激的成分来响应选择压力。在不可逆的化学反应中，动态组合库自发地自我排序，以牺牲活性较低的组分为代价，选择性地产生活性最高的组分。这种方法将用于开发新的树枝状大分子、传感器和其他功能分子的一步合成，以及快速筛选和发现新的化学反应。更广泛的影响包括为化学教育创建基于网络的远程学习工具，培训本科生和研究生，为高中生提供实验室暑期研究机会，为K-12教师组织科学研讨会，以及开发的自我分类过程的潜在科学和技术影响。研究将进一步了解和控制分子如何自发组织和结合成更大的分子。这些见解可能对阐明生命的化学起源以及设计新的工业工艺具有重要意义，这些新的工业工艺可以利用这些新的化学反应来有效地生产工业原料、新聚合物或环境污染物传感器。

In this project funded by the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Ognjen Miljanic of the University of Houston will develop fully synthetic self-organizing chemical systems, and study their applications in preparative macromolecular chemistry. The approach is to utilize mixtures of freely equilibrating compounds known as dynamic combinatorial libraries, which respond to selection pressures by amplifying their components that best adapt to the given stimulus. During irreversible chemical reactions, dynamic combinatorial libraries spontaneously self-sort to selectively produce the most reactive components at the expense of their less reactive counterparts. This methodology will be used to develop one-step syntheses of new dendrimers, sensors, and other functional molecules, as well as to rapidly screen and discover new chemical reactions. The broader impacts involve creation of web-based distance learning tools for chemical education, training of undergraduate and graduate students, providing high school students with summer research opportunities in the laboratory, organization of science workshops for K-12 teachers, and the potential scientific and technological impact of the developed self-sorting processes.The research will further our understanding and control of how molecules spontaneously organize and combine into larger molecules. These insights could be important in elucidating the chemical origins of life, as well as in the design of new industrial processes which could utilize these new chemical reactions to efficiently produce industrial feedstocks, new polymers, or sensors for environmental pollutants.