Spring

White phosphorus (P4) has been the traditional entry point into phosphorus chemistry. The thirteenth element to have been isolated, it can be oxidized with elemental oxygen or chlorine, or reduced in a variety of ways. We investigated its reduction using early transition metal systems and breakdown to produce complexes with terminal metal-phosphorus triple bonds. Such terminal phosphide complexes possess nucleophilic phosphorus atoms, paving the way to new phosphorus-element bonded systems.

This talk will provide an overview of our group’s work using both standard and atypical high-performance computational chemistry modeling to elucidate atomic scale reaction mechanisms of catalytic reactions. I will introduce our toolkit of in silico methods for accurately modeling (electro)catalytic reactions in solvating environments. I will then present how in silico methods can be used for predictive insights into chemical and material design.

Increasingly, fluorescent tools are providing insight into the “dark matter” of the cellular milieu: small molecules, secondary metabolites, metals, and ions.  One of the great promises of such tools is the ability to quantify cellular signals in precise locations with high temporal resolution.  Yet this is coupled with the challenge of how to ensure that our tools are not perturbing the underlying biology and the need to systematically measure hundreds of individual cells over time.