Projektbeschreibung
Forschung stellt konventionelles Wissen über die Wechselwirkung von Licht und Materie in biologischen Materialien in Frage
Fluoreszenz in organischer Materie wurde lange Zeit nur mit einer bestimmten Klasse von Chemikalien in Verbindung gebracht, nämlich mit konjugierten Systemen. Jüngste Experimente legen nahe, dass es möglich ist, Fluoreszenz in Medien zu beobachten, die aus dichten Netzwerken aus Wasserstoffbrückenbindungen bestehen. Mithilfe fortschrittlicher Computersimulationen sollen im Rahmen des EU-finanzierten Projekts HyBOP die exotischen optischen Eigenschaften von Wasserstoffbrückenbindungsnetzwerken entschlüsselt und diese als Sonden für über das Wasser vermittelte Kräfte genutzt werden. Zu diesem Zweck werden die Forschenden untersuchen, wie fluoreszierende Wasserstoffbrückennetzwerke in biologischen Materialien erzeugt und Elektronen und Nuklei in Wasser manipuliert werden können. Wasserstoffbrückennetzwerke könnten dazu beitragen, viele verschiedene Phänomene nichtinvasiv zu untersuchen, u. a. im medizinischen Bereich.
Ziel
Fluorescence takes place throughout the natural world. Most conventional chemical wisdom proposes that in organic entities, fluorescence occurs in conjugated systems, such as in the aromatics. However, in biological settings, the interaction of light with matter occurs in media built up of dense networks of hydrogen bonds. Recent experiments suggest that it is possible to observe fluorescence from these networks too. This could open the possibility of designing hydrogen-bond networks with enhanced fluorescence, offering enormous fundamental and practical potential.
The overarching goal of HyBOP is to decipher, using advanced computer simulations, the exotic optical properties of hydrogen-bond networks and to harness them as probes of water-mediated forces. To achieve this, HyBOP will tackle the following challenges:1) Establish the ground rules for creating fluorescent hydrogen-bond networks in biological materials. 2) Understand how to drive the electrons and nuclei of water networks into regimes where they can fluoresce. 3) Use the optical behaviour of these networks to probe hydrophobic forces in nature.
To uncover the complex chemistry of hydrogen-bond network fluorescence, and guide the discovery of new fluorophores, we will deploy state of the art electronic excited-state molecular dynamics in combination with machine-learning techniques. This will provide HyBOP with ground-breaking knowledge which will lay a theoretical framework to motivate development of new experimental probes of hydrophobicity.
HyBOP seeks to bring hydrogen-bond networks to the forefront of chemistry in their use as optical probes; by laying the theoretical ground-work for designing non-invasive fluorophores in biophysics, opening up a new window into the origins of autofluorescence in medical diagnostics and finally, provoking frontier electron and nuclear spectroscopy, HyBOP will have a spill-over effect and build new synergies across several branches of the physical sciences.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Gastgebende Einrichtung
75007 Paris
Frankreich