Conférences en Chimie bio-inorganique

2018, May, 11th

Dani Gibson

Institute for Drug Research, School of Pharmacy, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Invited professor ENS

dang @ ekmd.huji.ac.il (dang @ ekmd.huji.ac.il)

Multi-Action Platinum Anticancer Agents

To overcome the drawbacks of the clinically used Pt(II) drugs, we designed muti-action Pt(IV) prodrugs that can release inside the cancer cells two, three or four bioactive moieties that have different cellular targets.  This approach enhances the chances of killing the cancer cells. These compounds are very potent cytotoxic agents that were particularly effective against KRAS mutated cancers such as colon and pancreas.

2018, October 5^th

Christophe Copéret

Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, , ETH Zurich, Switzerland ccoperet @ inorg.chem.ethz.ch (ccoperet @ inorg.chem.ethz.ch)

Molecular understanding and controlled functionalization of surfaces towards single-site catalysts and beyond

The rational design and development of functional materials, and catalysts in particular, requires a structure – property relationship approach, hence the need for strategies to control the generation of well-defined surface sites and for the development of characterization techniques with molecular-level precision.  Here, we first discuss the method to control and understand the chemistry at the surface of materials towards the development of so-called single-site catalysts and show how this approach can bring about information about industrial catalysts and be used to tailoring multifunctional catalysts.[1,2] In this context, we will show how Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Surface Enhanced NMR spectroscopy can provide insightful information about a broad range of materials, which are not available by other characterization techniques.[3] We will also how NMR chemical shifts can be used to predict the reactivity of molecules and how this molecular approach can be used to bridge the gap with other disciplines, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), data storage and microelectronics.

2018, November 21^st

Hongjie Dai

Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-7102, USA

hdai1 @ stanford.edu (hdai1 @ stanford.edu)

Carbon Based Nanosciences

This talk will review our work on nanosciences based on carbon. I will first briefly review our earlier work of carbon nanomaterials including carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoribbons, and then focus on fluorescence biological imaging in the newly opened 1000-1700 nm NIR-II window to benefit from greatly suppressed photon scattering at long wavelengths.  We show that NIR-II imaging is novel with up to millimeters tissue depth capable of sub-10 micron spatial resolution, using a wide range of fluorescent agents developed in our lab including carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, rare-earth nanoparticles, donor-acceptor conjugated polymers and small organic molecules.  The second part of the talk will focus on our work on advancing new types of electrocatalysts for renewable energy applications and the development of novel batteries. I will talk about the development of electrocatalysts for water splitting with high energy efficiency and lifetimes. I will also present our recent work on the development of rechargeable Al ion battery utilizing some of the most abundant materials on earth including graphite, aluminum and urea. The latest results on operando in situ X ray diffraction of anion-graphite intercalation will be presented.