Our next webinar will take place via the internet on Tuesday September 28th at 8PM EDT/1AM GMT. Sign up on our mailing list to receive the Zoom link!
We hope to see/hear from you all at one of our sessions or as one of the next speakers. If you are an early career scientist and would like to present your research, don't hesitate to submit an abstract today! For now, please learn more about our current speakers and their research below. We also thank the generous support from Cell Reports Physical Science, Merck, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Our featured speakers this week are Harrison Bergman (graduate student, University of California Berkeley, USA), and Dr. Jan Mohammad Mir (assistant professor, Islamic University of Science & Technology, India). The seminar will be guest-moderated by Prof. Nathan Romero from UCSD.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKERS AND THEIR TALKS BELOW
HARRISON BERGMAN (on Twitter @bergy_dunitz)
Biography: Harrison Bergman is a fifth-year PhD candidate in chemistry at UC Berkeley advised by T. Don Tilley and Yi Liu, where he leverages metal-mediated synthetic methods to access new organic materials. Specifically, his research focuses on zirconocene coupling of alkynes as a powerful strategy to synthesize conjugated macrocycles, nanoribbons, and topologically complex cages. Originally from New Jersey, Harrison graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with a B.S. in chemical engineering.
Title of Talk: Scalable, Divergent Synthesis of a High Aspect Ratio Carbon Nanobelt.
Abstract: Carbon nanobelts are molecules of high fundamental and technological interest due to their structural similarity to carbon nanotubes, of which they are molecular cutouts. Despite this attention, synthetic accessibility is a major obstacle, such that the few known strategies offer limited structural diversity, functionality, and scalability. To address this bottleneck, we have developed a new strategy that utilizes highly fused monomer units constructed via a site-selective [2 + 2 + 2] cycloaddition and a high-yielding zirconocene-mediated macrocyclization to achieve the synthesis of a new carbon nanobelt on large scale with the introduction of functional handles in the penultimate step. This nanobelt represents a diagonal cross section of an armchair carbon nanotube and consequently has a longitudinally extended structure with an aspect ratio of 1.6, the highest of any reported nanobelt. This elongated structure promotes solid-state packing into aligned columns that mimic the parent carbon nanotube and facilitates unprecedented host–guest chemistry with oligo-arylene guests in nonpolar solvents. This unusual affinity points to a new potential application for CNBs in the synthesis of fully conjugated mechanically interlocked molecules and molecular machines. As the first instance of a CNB performing a unique function not easily attainable by other means, this is an important step in their development as technologically valuable building blocks for more complex materials.
DR JAN MOHAMMAD MIR (on Twitter @DrJanMohammadM1)
Biography: Dr Jan Mohammad Mir is currently working as an Asst. Professor at the Islamic University of Science and technology, Awantipora-J&K. He bagged his Ph.D. from R.D. University, Jabalpur in 2015 and has very recently completed his D.Sc. degree from the same university. His postdoctoral research mainly involves the molecular modeling and medicinal implications of metal based gasotransmitters. Currently, he is seeking the role of NO, CO and H2S in minimizing the COVID-19 associated severity. He has published more than sixty research papers and more than seven books and several book chapters.
Title of Talk: Nitric oxide, an option for COVID-19 treatment.
Abstract: Nitric oxide is the first gasotransmitter member widely accepted for its profound biological role. This simple molecule is effective antiviral drug. Due to its outstanding antiviral implications, trials are under final phase to find the use of NO in treating the dreadful infectious disease-covid 19. The work being presented here introduces some NO containing drugs to target their applications for the disease under discussion. Beneficial conclusions are being drawn and not only for human world, but for the entire biome.
Comments