home > TRiO and USP Programs > McNair > symposium > 2001 presentations > Vanessa Muller

Vanessa Muller
Biochemistry

Kenneth Doxsee, Mentor

Biologically Inspired Design and Synthesis of Molecular Tweezers for the Extraction of Calcium

Previous research has established that phenacyl alcohol binds selectively with calcium ions. The physical properties of this aromatic alcohol molecule suggest several biomedical applications. Another interest involves selectivity modifications, which could accommodate heavy metal extractions such as removing strontium from nuclear waste sites. A recent synthesis incorporated two phenacyl alcohol groups into one molecule in order to reduce the entropic cost (chelate effect) of complexation between the phenacyl alcohol groups and calcium ion. Generating the binding agent involves a six-step synthesis starting with alpha bromotoluene. The plan incorporates several commonly practiced reactions (i.e., Grignard, Benzyne coupling, Swern type oxidation) to achieve the final goal. Following successful synthesis, attempts will be made to produce an organocalcium complex via metathesis (i.e. ligands exchange reaction) for structural analysis by x-ray diffraction. The main theme of this research is to address the calcium ion affinity and selectivity of the synthesized complex.