Artificial Dynamic Guest-Adaptive Hosts for Catalysts and Sensors

在目前的实践中，现代工业催化剂能够使化学原料的价值成倍增加，但合成催化剂的效率和选择性却无法与酶相媲美。同样，合成化学传感器也无法与蛋白质受体的灵敏度和选择性相媲美。生物系统是通过自然选择进化而调整的，允许它们以最聪明的设计师可能难以预测的方式调整功能。我们建议创造新的催化剂和传感器，它们能够进化以磨练它们的功能。该项目的目标是创建一类新的分子容器，能够以高亲和力结合不同的客人。当过渡态类似物用于模板时，这种适应性将用于创建特定于客人的传感器和酶样催化剂。为不同的反应快速制造设计催化剂的能力，加上在水中操作的能力，可以使这些催化胶囊作为绿色纳米反应器在工业上有用。

Modern industrial catalysts are able to multiply the value of chemical feedstocks many times in current practice, but synthetic catalysts are unable to match the efficiency and selectivity of enzymes. Likewise, synthetic chemosensors cannot rival the sensitivity and selectivity of protein receptors. Biological systems are tuned by evolution via natural selection, allowing their function to be tuned in ways that the cleverest designer might find hard to predict. We propose to create new catalysts and sensors that are able to evolve to hone their function. The goal of this project is to create a new class of molecular containers capable of evolving to bind different guests with high affinity. This adaptation will find use in the creation of guest-specific sensors and enzyme-like catalysts, when transition-state analogues are used for templation. The ability to quickly make designer catalysts for different reactions, coupled with the ability to operate in water, could render these catalytic capsules industrially useful as green nano-reactors.