The four main objectives of this project supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program, and carried out by Professor Brodbelt of the University of Texas at Austin are 1) the measurement of binding affinities in host guest systems through comparison of the intensities of appropriate ions in the electrospray ionization mass spectrum, 2) determination of the influence of solvent effects and other solution conditions on binding selectivities, again as evidenced by ion intensities in the mass spectrum, 3) measurement of binding affinities for synthetic host ligands (work done in collaboration with other research groups that will prepare these new analogs) and 4)use of gas phase hydrogen and deuterium exchange reactions for probing the structures of the host guest complexes. All of the mass spectra will be recorded with an electrospray ionization source linked to an ion trap mass spectrometer.
This project uses electrospray ionization mass spectrometry to rapidly and accurately determine the strengths of binding between guest ions and host molecules, including new host molecules synthesized by organic chemistry groups. The telling advantage of this work is that the relative binding strengths can be assessed directly from the relative intensities of the ions in the mass spectrum. Of the graduate students involved in this work, a sizable fraction are comprised of women or underrepresented groups.
