Professor Edward Solomon’s research spans the fields of physical-inorganic, bioinorganic, and theoretical-inorganic chemistry. His work focuses on spectroscopic elucidation of the electronic structure of transition metal complexes and its contribution to reactivity. He has developed new spectroscopic and electronic structure methods and applied these to active sites in catalysis. He has made significant contributions to our understanding of metal sites involved in electron and oxo transfer, copper sites involved in O2 binding, activation and reduction to water, in structure/function correlations over non-heme iron enzymes, and in the correlation of biological to heterogeneous catalysis.
Edward I. Solomon grew up in North Miami Beach, Florida, received his Ph.D. at Princeton (1972) and was a postdoctoral fellow at The Ørsted Institute in Denmark and at Caltech. He started his career at MIT in late 1975, became a full professor in 1981, and joined the faculty at Stanford in 1982 where he is now the Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Photon Science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has been a visiting professor in France, Argentina, Japan, China, India, Australia and Brazil. He has received ACS National Awards in Inorganic Chemistry, Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry, the Alfred Bader Award in Bioinorganic or Bioorganic Chemistry, the Ira Remsen Award, and the Kosolapoff Award, the Centenary Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), the Wheland Medal from the University of Chicago, the Bailar Medal from the University of Illinois, the Frontiers in Biological Chemistry Award from the Max-Planck- Institute (Mülheim), the Chakravorty Award from the Chemical Research Society of India and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford among others. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow in American Association for the Advancement of Science and in the American Chemical Society.
The Solomon lab uses both experimental and theoretical techniques to define the electronic and geometric structures of biologically- and catalytically-relevant transition metal sites, with the goal of applying insights into electronic structure to obtain a detailed understanding of reactivity and function. This research utilizes a wide range of spectroscopic, theoretical, and chemical techniques to probe structure/function relationships, gain mechanistic insight, and address fundamental questions of relevance to chemistry and biology. The systems under study can be divided into five general areas:
– Electron Transfer Sites
– Copper Active Sites in Biology
– Mononuclear Non-Heme Iron Enzymes: Structure/Function Correlation
– Binuclear Non-Heme Iron Enzymes: Dioxygen Binding and Activation
– Correlations from Biological to Heterogenous Catalysis
Hadt, R. G., Gorelsky, S. I., & Solomon, E. I. (2014). Anisotropic Covalency Contributions to Superexchange Pathways in Type One Copper Active Sites. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 136(42), 15034–45.
Heppner, D. E., Kjaergaard, C. H., & Solomon, E. I. (2014). Mechanism of the Reduction of the Native Intermediate in the Multicopper Oxidases: Insights into Rapid Intramolecular Electron Transfer in Turnover. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 136(51), 17788–801.
Snyder, R. A., Butch, S. E., Reig, A. J., DeGrado, W. F., & Solomon, E. I. (2015). Molecular-Level Insight into the Differential Oxidase and Oxygenase Reactivities of de Novo Due Ferri Proteins. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 137(29), 9302–14.
Kieber-Emmons, M. T., Ginsbach, J. W., Wick, P. K., Lucas, H. R., Helton, M. E., Lucchese, B., … Solomon, E. I. (2014). Observation of a Cu-2(II)(mu-1,2-peroxo)/Cu-2(III)(mu-oxo)(2) Equilibrium and its Implications for Copper-Dioxygen Reactivity. ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION, 53(19), 4935–39.
Kroll, T., Hadt, R. G., Wilson, S. A., Lundberg, M., Yan, J. J., Weng, T.-C., … Solomon, E. I. (2014). Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering on Ferrous and Ferric Bis-imidazole Porphyrin and Cytochrome c: Nature and Role of the Axial Methionine-Fe Bond. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 136(52), 18087–99.
Kjaergaard, C. H., Qayyum, M. F., Wong, S. D., Xu, F., Hemsworth, G. R., Walton, D. J., … Solomon, E. I. (2014). Spectroscopic and computational insight into the activation of O-2 by the mononuclear Cu center in polysaccharide monooxygenases. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 111(24), 8797–8802.
Vanelderen, P., Snyder, B. E. R., Tsai, M.-L., Hadt, R. G., Vancauwenbergh, J., Coussens, O., … Solomon, E. I. (2015). Spectroscopic Definition of the Copper Active Sites in Mordenite: Selective Methane Oxidation. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 137(19), 6383–92.
Ha, Y., Tenderholt, A. L., Holm, R. H., Hedman, B., Hodgson, K. O., & Solomon, E. I. (2014). Sulfur K-Edge X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and Density Functional Theory Calculations on Monooxo Mo-IV and Bisoxo Mo-VI Bis-dithiolenes: Insights into the Mechanism of Oxo Transfer in Sulfite Oxidase and Its Relation to the Mechanism of DMSO Reductase. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 136(25), 9094–9105.
Kjaergaard, C. H., Jones, S. M., Gounel, S., Mano, N., & Solomon, E. I. (2015). Two-Electron Reduction versus One-Electron Oxidation of the Type 3 Pair in the Multicopper Oxidases. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 137(27), 8783–94.
Tsai, M.-L., Hadt, R. G., Vanelderen, P., Sels, B. F., Schoonheydt, R. A., & Solomon, E. I. (2014). [Cu2O](2+) Active Site Formation in Cu-ZSM-5: Geometric and Electronic Structure Requirements for N2O Activation. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 136(9), 3522–29.