This award from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities Program will assist the Department of Chemistry at the University of California--Santa Barbara in the purchase of a 400 MHz NMR spectrometer. This acquisition will enhance greatly the research in a number of areas including the following: the design and synthesis of molecules which can function as sequence-specific catalysts of nucleic acid hydrolysis, the preparation of superstructural porphyrins, the development of reagents for diastereoselective and enantioselective reductions, studies of organocopper chemistry, the development of new synthetic methods in organometallic chemistry, explorations of the Diels-Alder reaction, studies of diyl hydrogen abstraction reactions including sequence-specific reactions of such species with nucleic acids, development of the organic chemistry of substituted fullerenes, and the preparation and study of organic polymers with unusual chemical and physical properties. A nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer is used to obtain information about molecular structure (what types of carbon and/or hydrogen atoms and/or hetero-atoms are present, what are the relative number of each type of atoms and how are they connected to one another in the molecule) and molecular dynamics (how rapidly are the various parts of the molecule moving). This instrument is essential for any meaningful, modern synthetic chemistry research program.
