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DR ANTHONY MELVIN CRASTO Ph.D ( ICT, Mumbai) , INDIA 29Yrs Exp. in the feld of Organic Chemistry,Working for GLENMARK PHARMA at Navi Mumbai, INDIA. Serving chemists around the world. Helping them with websites on Chemistry.Million hits on google, world acclamation from industry, academia, drug authorities for websites, blogs and educational contribution
Recently, our group has developed the zirconocene-mediated ring opening of alkylidenecyclopropanes (ACPs) and w-ene cyclopropanes derivatives, via a unique and selective merging of allylic carbon-hydrogen and carbon-carbon bond activations, leading to bismetallated zirconocene complex. The addition of two different electrophiles gives bisfunctionalized acyclic molecules in excellent yields. By diversifying the nature of the two electrophiles, two stereogenic centers were created with high diastereoselectivity.
In this context, we proposed to enlarge the scope of this process by creating three stereogenic centers in an acyclic product via a one-pot sequence, while studying the diastereoselectivity.
Since zirconocene-mediated ring opening was done with stoichiometric amount of zirconocene complex, we tried to develop a catalytic process for the ring cleavage applied on ACPs derivatives, based on the successful catalytic carbozirconation on multiple bonds.
A deeper mechanistic understanding of the combined allylic carbon-hydrogen and carbon-carbon bond activations pathway was also proposed, using labeled experiments.
Finally, we applied our zirconocene-mediated ring opening methodology to the synthesis of the two enantiomers of deuterated neopentane: the smallest enantiomerically enriched hydrocarbons that possess an all-carbon quaternary stereocenter, that is, a carbon center with four different non-hydrogen substituents. Using advanced and sensitive methods, we successfully determined their absolute configuration.
Alternate, sustainable energy sources are gaining increased attention from chemists, physicists and engineers, as mankind realizes the limited availability and adverse environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels. Solar cells have great potential to be used as a sustainable and green energy source for the future. In this regard a prototype of a nano solar cell containing the Mycobacterial channel protein MspA, as the matrix for vectorial electron transport has been successfully achieved.
MspA is an octameric trans-membrane channel protein (i.e. porin) produced by Mycobacterium smegmatis and is one of the most stable porins known so far. Wild type MspA has been successfully isolated, analyzed and purified to obtain crystals. A novel Ruthenium-phenanthroline-viologen-maleimide dye which is a fast vectorial electron transporter, has been synthesized, purified and successfully bound to the terminal end of wild type MspA, via the cysteine-maleimide bond. The dye-protein complex has then been adsorbed onto TiO2 plates and subjected to incident sunlight. The protein appeared to be stable under the incident wavelength and a steady current is observed. A 1% incident photon conversion efficiency of sunlight into current by the MspA-dye complex has been achieved so far. This finding marks the first ever evidence of a ‘protein nano solar cell’. Future developments to enhance the efficiency of the system are proposed.
Design of a Mycobacterial Porin Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cell - GRAND PRIZE WINNER - Ayomi S. Perera, Navaneetha K. Subbaiyan, Mausam Kalita, Sebastian Wendel, Francis D'Souza - Stefan H. Bossmann - Kansas