This Presidential Young Investigator award from the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program will support the research of Dr. Cynthia K. Schauer in organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry. The binding of vanadate and polyvanadate anions to cationic metal complexes will be explored, together with the chemistry and electrochemistry of the resulting metal-vanadate complexes. The results are expected to provide a better understanding of the mechanism of the inhibition of a variety of phosphatase enzymes, in which the vanadate anion is believed to replace phosphate at a catalytic site at which it is bound to a metal cation. A second facet of the research program will involve the application of metal cluster chemistry to the synthesis of new solid state materials. Heteroatom-substituted metal carbonyl clusters will be synthesized such that the desired composition is attained after removal of carbon monoxide by thermal, laser-induced or electron-beam induced decomposition. This approach is expected to provide new solid materials without the need for high-temperature treatment, and allow the synthesis of materials which are unstable at high temperatures.
