Bruce Gibb
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Chemistry
Many chemical reactions need harsh solvents, high temperatures or toxic reagents. Supramolecular chemistry offers another route.
- Fields
Chemistry
- Topics
supramolecular chemistry
host-guest chemistry
molecular capsules
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Develop a mild catalytic process for adding iodine to aromatic rings in water that works across a broad range of starting molecules, using supramolecular hosts and the hydrophobic effect.
- Study new yoctoliter (10^-24 L) capsules that are negatively charged under acidic conditions, and test whether they promote or catalyze reactions that pass through positively charged intermediates and transition states.
- Synthesize new supramolecular capsules with endo-functionality, chemical groups built into their inner walls, to gain better control over how a trapped guest molecule is held and reacts.
- Bring host-guest supramolecular chemistry closer to synthetic methodology by building new water-based organocatalysis platforms that run reactions under environmentally benign conditions.
More about the research
It builds host molecules that form tiny capsules, which hold "guest" molecules inside and can change how those guests react. This work asks how guests behave inside such capsules in water, and how capsules can be used to turn guests into new products. The goal is gentler, more environmentally friendly ways to make molecules.
Why it matters
Reactions that run in water under mild conditions could give chemists more efficient and less wasteful ways to make molecules. Chemical manufacturing could then rely less on harsh solvents and reagents. A gentle, broadly applicable way to add iodine to aromatic rings, and capsules that steer reactions, could become useful tools for synthetic chemists.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Vaidhyanathan Ramamurthy
University of Miami, FL·Chemistry
Use water-soluble synthetic host molecules with cavities a few angstroms wide as reaction containers that hold water-insoluble organic molecules during light-driven reactions in water.
Viktor Zhdankin
University of Minnesota-Duluth, MN·Chemistry
Develop pseudocyclic arylbenziodoxaboroles, iodine–boron compounds, as benzyne precursors and as efficient electrophilic arylating reagents that work under neutral, aqueous conditions.
Christopher Hartley
Miami University-Oxford, OH·Chemistry
Determine how chains that combine attractive and repulsive interactions within a single molecule fold, programming structure by inserting pyrazine-2,3-diyl units, nitrogen-containing aromatic rings, into ortho-phenylene sequences.
The school
Tulane University of Louisiana: 17 labs on PI Pages, $276M a year on research, 187 research doctorates a year.
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