Event
Chemical Society Seminar: Fran莽ois Gabbai- Main Group Lewis Acids: Exploring Anion Transport and Catalysis
Abstract:
Research in the Gabba茂 group has been dedicated to the synthesis and study of Lewis acidic main group compounds with the development of applications in molecular recognition and catalysis as the ultimate goals. This talk will highlight a series of recent results obtained in pursuit of these objectives. The first part of the presentation will show how Lewis acidic boron-, antimony- and tellurium-based anion receptors can be deployed in aqueous media to effectively transport a range of anions across the phospholipid membrane of artificial vesicles and live cells. The second part of the talk will show that the same type of main group Lewis acids can be used to engage both organic substrates and transition metal halides for application in organometallic catalysis.
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Bio:
Fran莽ois Gabba茂, a native of Montpellier, was educated at the University of Bordeaux, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Technical University of Munich where he completed his habilitation in 1998. He then joined Texas A&M University, where he is now a Distinguished Professor and the holder of the Arthur E. Martell Chair of Chemistry. Fran莽ois has served as an associate editor for Organometallics between 2011 and 2019, and for Chemical Science since April 2019. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the recipient of the 2009 North American Dalton Lectureship, the 2016 ACS F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry, the 2019 Distinguished Achievement Research Award from the Texas A&M Association of Former Students, and the 2022 Boron in the Americas Award. His research interests revolve around the chemistry of p-block and late transition metal elements with applications in the domain of molecular recognition, anion sensing and transport, and catalysis.