EAGER: A Novel Approach for Molecular-Scale Probing of Hierarchical Organic Assemblies at Mineral Interfaces

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In this EAGER proposal, Professor Ludmilla Aristilde of Cornell University uses a novel combination of experimental tools adopted from two different fields, molecular biology and molecular surface chemistry, with the aim of understanding environmental chemistry . Specifically, the researchers seek to understand how organic biomolecules react on mineral surfaces. This study is important to understand how organic matter (carbon from leaves, stems, roots, etc.) is recycled in the environment. This high risk project focuses on how carbon is stored in soil on a fundamental level. Professor Aristilde is also developing a new course offering, which includes laboratory modules, to introduce students both to the study of surface chemistry of natural particles and to the application of nanotechnologies to study these surfaces. She provides research opportunities in her lab for undergraduate students, especially women and underrepresented minorities. In this project, supported by the Environmental Chemical Sciences, Environmental Engineering, and Geobiology and Low Temperature Geochemistry Programs, the mechanisms, stability, and fate of mineral-associated soil organic matter is studied. This research has implications on the global carbon cycle. The combination of the analytical techniques is novel and represents a unique, interdisciplinary approach, especially as the research tools are borrowed from different disciplines, biology and molecular surface chemistry. An inexpensive approach for generating high selectivity in the stable-isotope labeling profile of a complex organic matrix using a biocatalytic platform is explored. This project uses bacterial metabolism to achieve new molecular probes for organo-mineral and organo-organo entities using stable isotope-enhanced multi-dimensional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy. This high-risk, high-reward project obtains selectivity from dually isotopically-labeled versions of a complex organic matrix.