Projects

N-containing heterocycles can be found in several bioactive small molecules, and it is well known that these are very prominent scaffolds in drug discovery. Additionally, the availability of organic reactions for different functionalizations is the key factor that may be limiting the development of new drugs. It is widely accepted that investments in basic chemistry for the development of new synthetic methodologies towards heterocycles are ...

Drug discovery is a lengthy, expensive, difficult, and inefficient process with quite a low rate of new therapeutic discoveries from existing molecules or new molecular entities. These projects generally start with a high-throughput screening campaign of commercially available compound libraries

against the target of interest. However in recent years, it became clear that current combinatorial libraries are not enough. As a mission of ...

The total number of different proteins present in Earth organisms is estimated to be up to 10 million. While their identification in terms of primary sequences is expanding at an increasing rate, elucidation of their function and three-dimensional structure is drastically lacking behind. Most of the currently used approaches in proteomics for unraveling the structure and function of proteins require protein hydrolysis into more manageable ...

Transition metal catalysis lies at the heart of modern innovative science. To expand this area in organic synthesis, the challenge is to identify novel strategies for the formation of organo-metallic intermediates under mild conditions, and to discover new methods for their subsequent transformation. In this proposal we will focus on the trapping of transient C(sp3)- and C(sp2)-Pd species via C-H activation, or employing oxygen/nitrogen ...

The redox chemistry between metal-substituted polyoxometalates (POMs) and proteins has been virtually unexplored. Considering a large number of metal-substituted POMs that have been shown to exhibit potent biological activity and reactivity towards biologically relevant substrates, understanding the redox chemistry between POMs and proteins on a molecular level will aid to advance their application in medicinal chemistry and catalysis. ...

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are generally described as a class of negatively charged metal-oxygen structures with properties strongly dependent on their nature. This variety makes POMs very attractive as chemical agents. In fact, they are applied in various fields such as catalysis, materials science and medicine. Hybrid POMs (HPOMs) are POMs bearing organic linkers that can introduce a wide range of new properties. Recent research has ...

Rare earth elements (REEs) have been considered by the European Commission as the most critical raw material, considering both risk of supply shortage and impact on economy. The establishment of efficient REEs recycling technologies could significantly reduce the European Union import dependence. This project is an experimental approach to develop a close-loop process for the recycling of lamp phosphor powder based on a new brand of ...

The Raman-SIM2 project involves a Raman spectrometer coupled to a microscope (Raman microscope) that is specifically designed to study the mineral phases in geological and metallurgical samples, with emphasis on (low-grade) ores, metallurgical slags, mine tailings, geopolymers and industrial process residues. The main goal is the qualitative and quantitative characterization of inorganic materials (solids, liquids and gases) on ...

NMR spectroscopy is one of the most powerful tools for structural and functional analyses of materials, especially if supported by quantum-chemical computations and modelling. Here we shall extend the applicability of solid state NMR to paramagnetic catalysts and to heterogeneous, disordered catalysts. Using a set of Cu-containing MOFs as test cases, we shall optimize NMR measurements and first-principles calculations of ...