This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This Research award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports work by Professor Claudia Turro at The Ohio State University to carry out fundamental/basic studies on ligand-loss photochemistry of ruthenium complexes. The aim of the research is to design new metal complexes that can undergo ligand exchange with water molecules with low energy visible light, such that, when photoactivated, these systems will bind to DNA. The main goal of the research is to understand the principles that govern efficient excited state ligand-loss, its kinetics, and how this excited state process can be enhanced. Understanding how the binding properties of the leaving ligand and the structural characteristics of the ground state and the lowest energy excited state affect the photochemistry represents a primary focus of the work. Other ligands around the metal centered will be systematically varied in order to induce ligand exchange using low energy light. Once activated with light, the ruthenium complexes bind to DNA in an oxygen-independent manner. This work will provide the basic knowledge that can later be applied to the discovery of new antitumor agents that may circumvent the drawbacks of current drugs.
The PI and both co-PIs are committed to the education of graduate and undergraduate students, as well as members of underrepresented groups. The PI is the faculty advisor for the student chapter of the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chem. Engineers at OSU, is a member of the departmental Diversity Committee, and attended national and regional meetings of societies geared to promote and retain underrepresented minorities and women in science. These efforts will aid in the training of highly qualified, diverse scientists at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
An important aspect of the research is the potential for the new complexes derived from this work to act as antitumor agents, thus providing a clear benefit to society.
