Professor Leslie Murray, University of Florida

"Selective Binding and Activation of Small Molecules By Trimetallic Cyclophane Complexes"

About the Seminar:

Biological systems utilize metal-ion redox cooperativity within metal clusters to catalyze multi-electron redox reactions under ambient conditions and at biologically-accessible reduction potentials (e.g., N2reduction). These reactions are essential to atom cycles in biosphere and are also of great societal value for green energy and improved food production. In contrast, few synthetic clusters are capable of performing these reactions, suggesting that the protein matrix affords unique control of electronic and steric effects to access this reactivity. In an attempt to understand how structural and electronic parameters dictate cooperative effects in metal clusters, we employ macrobicycles as ligands to enforce a priori control of the electronic environment and the relative spatial arrangement of metal ions within trimetallic clusters. Results of our ongoing work including dinitrogen coordination and reduction, the reactivity of bridging hydrides, and dioxygen activation will be presented.

About the Speaker: 

Leslie J. Murray grew up in Trinidad & Tobago, and moved to the US to attend Swarthmore College from where he obtained his BA degrees in Chemistry and Biology in 2002. He then received a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry in 2007 under the supervision of Prof. Stephen J. Lippard at MIT, where his PhD thesis examined the component interactions and dioxygen activation in bacterial multicomponent monooxygenases, and specifically, in toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase system. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Long’s group at UC Berkeley and his research there focused on gas storage and separation using metal–organic frameworks. He began as Assistant Professor at the University of Florida in Fall 2010. A major theme of his program is on developing multimetallic complexes to model the reactivity of metal cluster active sites in biology.