In this collaborative project, funded by the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, and by the Office of International Science and Education, Prof. Mattanjah deVries of the University of California, Santa Barbara and his graduate research students will study the photophysics of DNA base-pairs in the gas phase. In this work, Prof. deVries and his students will be collaborating with the theoretical chemistry group of Prof. Wolfgang Domcke at the Technical University of Munich. Prof. Domcke's group has support from the DFG for this work. A broader scientific impact of this research will come from the answers that it provides about the photostability of these species under the conditions of the early earth and how this may have affected the eventual chemical makeup of living systems.
Besides the broader scientific impacts of the research being supported, Prof. de Vries will be providing his students with training in sophisticated experimental techniques and state-of-the-art theoretical methods. In addition, his students will gain valuable international experience through their collaboration with Prof. Domcke and his group.
