Francois Gabbai
Texas A&M University-College Station, TX·Chemistry
Chemical bonds and reactions are usually described by where they begin and end. Much of the important behavior, however, happens in loose intermediate states and in how molecules interact with their surroundings, such as cell membranes.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biophysics
- Topics
main group chemistry
supramolecular chemistry
anion transport
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Determine how the accessibility, position and electronic properties of tellurium binding sites in telluronium cations affect transport of chloride and trifluoroacetate across phospholipid bilayers, using vesicle assays.
- Design bis(tellurium) cations as two-site hosts that bind and transport the polyatomic trifluoroacetate anion across artificial lipid membranes.
- Use second-order nonlinear optical techniques to reveal how telluronium transporters behave inside lipid membranes and how anion binding changes that behavior.
- Synthesize tethered carbenium-based Lewis adducts and test how the carbenium unit, Lewis base donor strength and backbone control switching between bonded inner forms and non-covalent outer forms.
- Use inner/outer isomerism to reversibly mask reactive carbenium ions for photoredox catalysis and to tune two-electron redox cycling at chalcogen and pnictogen centers.
More about the research
Both projects use unusual main-group compounds, built around elements such as tellurium and positively charged carbon, to control these interactions. One project aims to carry negative ions across membranes. The other aims to switch between bonded and loosely held forms of a molecule to support catalysis.
Why it matters
Small molecules that carry chloride and other anions across lipid membranes could inform the design of synthetic transporters that work in biological membranes. Compounds that switch between bonded and loosely held forms could support next-generation catalysts, including photocatalysts, and add to the basic understanding of how chemical bonds form.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
T Don Tilley
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Chemistry
Develop high-yield [2+2+n] cycloaddition reactions that add several fused aromatic rings in one step, giving scalable access to large, tailored polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Mark Lipke
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Chemistry
Measure how water trapped inside redox-active porphyrin nanocages changes the acidity of acid-bearing guest molecules and their combined proton-electron transfer, using electrochemistry and 1H NMR to quantify water uptake.
Christopher Graves
Swarthmore College, PA·Chemistry
Synthesize group 13 metal complexes (boron, aluminum, gallium, indium) of tripodal nitroxide ligands, (RTriNOx3–)M, with systematically varied electron-donating and electron-withdrawing substituents.
The school
Texas A&M University-College Station: 23 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 768 research doctorates a year.
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