Do you need a protein for efficient photochemistry?

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Some of the most essential processes in nature and for todays society and economy rely on the efficient interaction between light and matter. They range from photolithography used to create processors for todays computing needs to fundamental processes in nature, such as photosynthesis and vision. The latter exhibit a level of reactivity and speed that researchers have struggled for decades to recreate and understand in the laboratory. A case in point is the primary event in vision, the cis-trans isomerisation of the retinal chromophore in the visual pigment rhodopsin. This reaction is superbly fast and efficient when taking place inside the protein. 11-cis retinal in solution, however, reacts very slowly and inefficiently. The goal of our research is to unravel the source of the additional reactivity inside the protein. We have recently demonstrated for the first time, that a very minor chemical change to the retinal molecule can induce dynamics in solution that are comparable to those found in an evolution-optimised protein environment. The goal now is to systematically map the photochemical consequences of a series of potentially influential modifications to the molecule. The ultimate aim of this work is not only to reproduce the reactivity found in nature, but, more importantly, use the lessons learned in the design process to establish fundamental rules for what makes a light-induced process efficient and how it can be tuned rationally. These results will find applications in exactly those types of processes that have motivated the work in the first place: conversion of light into chemical energy for future alternative energy applications and the development of perfectly controllable molecular switches.