This Research Opportunities for Women Research Planning Grant is in the general area of organic chemistry. Dr. Banita White Brown of the Chemistry Department of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte will attempt to prepare several one-armed and two-armed peptide-derived lariat esters. Circular dichroism (CD) measurements will be made on at least two systems in order to test the feasibility of CD in determining binding constants for sodium, potassium, and calcium cations. The lariat esters are expected to behave as ionophores and exhibit selectivity for particular cations. If promising results are obtained, a proposal for sustained study in this area may be developed, perhaps focussing on competition between sidearm and ring sites for complexation or the roles of conformation and donor group polarity in cation selectivity.
