Determination of Complex Reaction Mechanisms based on Response Experiments

斯坦福大学（Stanford University）的约翰·罗斯（John Ross）获得了理论与计算化学项目的一项奖励，他的研究涉及从实验数据和一些相关主题中对复杂反应机制的理论确定。其中一个额外的主题涉及发展从确定性动力学到随机动力学的过渡理论，这在包括细胞分子拥挤世界在内的各种环境中都很重要。另一个涉及到对单分子动力学的分析和对一种新的“化学不确定原理”的探索，罗斯认为这种原理类似于量子力学中的海森堡不确定原理。第三个项目涉及开发脉冲序列，从复杂的反应网络中提取机械信息，目前正在与三个实验组合作完成，其中两个在斯坦福大学，第三个在西弗吉尼亚大学。通过开发从细胞等复杂反应环境中提取信息的新方法，这项工作有望对基因组学和代谢组学领域产生广泛的影响。罗斯正计划通过出版一本教科书来传播这一结果，以及之前由美国国家科学基金会支持的研究成果，这本教科书是他与两名以前的学生共同撰写的，书名为《关于反应机制的决定》。

John Ross of Stanford University is supported by an award from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program for research involving the theoretical determination of complex reaction mechanisms from experimental data and a number of related topics. One of these additional topics involves developing a theory for the transition from deterministic kinetics to stochastic kinetics, important in a variety of settings including the molecularly crowded world of the cell. Another involves the analysis of single molecule kinetics and the exploration of a new "chemical indetermination principle" which Ross suggests would be similar to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. A third project involves the development of pulse sequences to extract mechanistic information from complex reaction networks and is being done in collaboration with three experimental groups, two of them at Stanford, the third at West Virginia University. The work is expected to have a broad impact on the fields of genomics and metabolomics through the development of new methods to extract information from complex reaction environments such as the cell. Ross is planning to disseminate the results of this and prior NSF-supported research through the publication of a textbook, co-authored with two former students and entitled "On the Determination of Reaction Mechanisms."