This award will support collaboration between the University of Utah Department of Chemistry (David Grant and Anita Orendt) and the Utah Supercomputing Institute (Julio Facelli), and the University of Buenos Aires Department of Organic Chemistry (Alicia Pomilio) and Department of Physics (Ruben Contreras). The aim of the project is to better understand the electronic structure of flavonoids and related compounds, using 17O NMR and quantum mechanical methods. Flavonoids are natural products of plants native to Argentina, known for their therapeutic effects. It is expected that research results from this project will lead to a rational understanding of the relevant structure-activity relationships of flavonoids and potentially to the discovery of new drugs. The isolation and synthesis of flavonoids and the confor- mational analysis and NMR parameters of these compounds will be done in Buenos Aires. The 0-17 NMR chemical shielding measurements and ab initio calculations of chemical shielding as a function of conformation will be done in Utah. The synthesis of 0-17 labeled flavonoids in Buenos Aires will make the solid state 0-17 NMR studies feasible.
