Optical Methods for EE Analysis of Simple Carboxylic Acids

为了响应NSF 05-064“美国和德国研究人员化学合作活动（NSF- dfg）”，有机和大分子化学项目和国际科学与工程办公室支持德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校化学系Eric V. Anslyn教授的工作。这项研究将包括研究用于分析简单羧酸中过量对映体的光学方法。该项目由Ansyln教授的实验室和慕尼黑工业大学Franz Schmidtchen教授的研究小组合作完成。Schmidtchen小组将合成手性羧酸盐受体，并分析手性识别过程的热力学。安斯林小组将使用这些受体，并采用指示剂位移测定来创建光学传感技术。光学数据将使用完整的数学建模和人工神经网络进行分析。这些光学纯度的测定将被设计为确保羧酸底物中一般官能团的适用性。在这方面，受体将被设计为识别羧酸酯的对映体，仅仅是因为在α碳上的手性。这些研究将导致一种用户友好的、高通量的分析方法的发展，以确定对映体过量，这将对合成界和制药工业具有相当大的实际意义。此外，关于分子识别过程的许多基本信息也将出现。来自未被充分代表的少数民族的学生将被招募到这个研究项目中，并将有机会在德国花六个月的时间参与这个项目。

With this new award in response to NSF 05-064 "Cooperative Activities in Chemistry Between U.S. and German Investigators (NSF-DFG)", the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program and the Office on International Science and Engineering support the work of Professor Eric V. Anslyn, of the Chemistry Department at University of Texas at Austin. This research will involve investigations of optical methods for the analysis of enantiomeric excess in simple carboxylic acids. The project is a collaboration between Professor Ansyln's laboratory and the research group of Professor Franz Schmidtchen at the Technical University of Munich. The Schmidtchen group will synthesize the chiral carboxylate receptors and analyze the thermodynamics of the chiral discrimination process. The Anslyn group will use these receptors and employ indicator displacement assays to create optical sensing techniques. The optical data will be analyzed using full mathematical modeling and through the use of artificial neural networks. These assays of optical purity will be designed to insure general functional group applicability in the carboxylic acid substrates. In this connection, the receptors will be designed to recognize enantiomers of the carboxylates solely due to chirality at the alpha carbon.These investigations will lead to the development of a user friendly, high throughput analysis for determining enantiomeric excess, which will be of considerable practical importance to the synthetic community and the pharmaceutical industry. In addition much fundamental information concerning the process of molecular recognition will emerge. Students from underrepresented minorities will be recruited into this research project and will have the opportunity to spend six months participating in the project in Germany.