One of the centres will mimic the Biosystems using chemical systems and use the confined space to study chemical reactivity and the other will develop chiral technologies that will be utilized by academics and industry.
Molecular Architecture
To mimic the Biosystems using chemical systems and us the confined space to study chemical reactivity. Use of molecular dynamics to understand the pathways of the formation of the architectures of our interest will be a fundamental and complimentary aspects to the experimental work. Momentum has started building in this direction in recent time.To prepare multi-compartmental coordination cages of general formulations MmLn and MmLanLbo where M stands for palladium(II)/platinum(II) and L/La/Lb for chosen bi/poly dentate designed ligands, respectively.
- To use the homoleptic (containing one type of ligand) and heteroleptic cages (containing more than one type of ligands) for cooperative guest binding and further reactivity.
- To prepare supramolecular porous gel using coordination cages and use the soft matter for catalysis, binding and separation studies.
- Self-assembly of already self-assembled cage will be studied as tectons in crystal engineering.
- To perform computational studies like energy minimization and molecular dynamics to unveil the architectural preferences and pathways involved.
Principal Investigator: Dillip Kumar Chand
Chiral Technology
This research proposal will focus on starting a new (virtual) Centre for Chiral Technology (CCT)” which will mainly focus on developing new chiral catalysts, chiral reactions, chiral recognizers, and synthesis of biologically or materially important enantiopure chiral (natural) products including such as Azithromycin, Boceprevir, and Darunavir. CCT will be the first and the only centre for chiral technology in India and will develop several chiral technologies that will be utilized by academics and industry. Also, this CCT will develop the necessary chiral technology for Indian pharmaceutical and chemical companies to synthesize essential chiral drugs, chiral API, chiral optical switches, chiral recognition, and chiral separations. This new centre will be an “Indian Centric” as well and would avoid Indian companies to be less dependent on China as they import most of the chiral raw materials from China. We, a group of 12 experienced faculty members from chemistry, biotechnology, and chemical engineering departments of IIT Madras will work together to make this CCT as a world-class centre to develop new chiral technologies, which will be the solutions for several roadblocks of the proposed area.
Principal Investigator: G. Sekar