From discrete particle to single cell catalysis

微流控系统能够在单个颗粒或细胞水平上分析过程。虽然基于荧光检测的单细胞研究是生命科学和生化研究的最新水平，但在合成化学和生物催化方面的各自活性仍然缺乏。项目1的目标是开发使能技术，从而能够在尽可能小的维度上研究多相催化的有机合成以及全细胞催化。最终目标是探索溶液中的立体选择性转化，一直到单一催化剂颗粒的水平。这一挑战将通过开发封装、孵化和分析微流控液滴芯片中的单个颗粒的方法来解决。然后将这些设备无缝连接到分析技术，如质谱仪、离子迁移率光谱和基于芯片的液相色谱，以监控单一催化剂物种的周转率和选择性。最终，这一方法可以阐明令人兴奋的问题，即不同的催化剂物种在对映体选择性上是否以及如何不同，这反过来将有助于对多相催化和全细胞催化的基本理解和发展。

Microfluidic systems enable the analysis of processes on the single particle or cell level. While single cell studies based on fluorescence detection are the current state of the art in the life sciences and biochemical research, respective activities in synthetic chemistry and biocatalysis are still missing. The goal of project 1 is to develop enabling technologies, which allow the study of heterogeneously catalyzed organic syntheses as well as whole cell catalysis at the smallest possible dimensions. The ultimate goal is to explore stereoselective conversions in solution down to the single catalyst particle level. This challenge will be tackled by developing approaches to encapsulate, incubate, and analyse single particles in microfluidic droplet chips. These devices are then seamlessly hyphenated to analysis techniques such as mass spectrometry, ion mobility spectrometry, and chip-based liquid chromatography to monitor the turn-over and the selectivity of single catalyst species. Eventually this approach could shed light on the exciting question if and how individual catalyst species differ in enantioselectivity, which in turn would contribute to the basic understanding and the development of heterogeneous as well as whole cell catalysis.