From discrete particle to single cell catalysis

微流体系统可以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目前生命科学和生物化学研究的最新进展，但在合成化学和生物催化方面的相应活动仍然缺失。项目1的目标是开发使能技术，使多相催化有机合成和全细胞催化在尽可能小的尺寸上的研究成为可能。最终目标是探索溶液中的立体选择转化，直至单一催化剂颗粒水平。这一挑战将通过开发封装、孵育和分析微流控液滴芯片中的单个颗粒的方法来解决。然后，这些设备与质谱、离子迁移谱和基于芯片的液相色谱等分析技术无缝连接，以监测单一催化剂物种的周转和选择性。最终，这种方法可以阐明单个催化剂物种是否以及如何在对映体选择性上有所不同的令人兴奋的问题，这反过来将有助于对异质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.