Last week FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) approved Marco’s Undergraduate Reasearch scholarship. In this project, Marco is going to investigate the physical-chemical properties of various peroxides and disulfides. His investigations will be performed experimentally employing NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometry) and IR (Infrared Spectroscopy), and theoretically using ab initio and DFT calculations.
Some disulfides and peroxides occur naturally, being present mainly in proteins in the case of the disulfides and in many terpenes in the case of the peroxides, and exhibit biological activities (for further reading:10.2174/1389557033405313). A better understanding of the factors governing the conformational preferences exhibited by these compounds would allow, for example, new approaches to design and tune the biological activity of active molecules containing these groups.
We wish Marco good luck in this project and we expect to celebrate his first payment ASAP (we’re counting on you, Marco!). We also hope he does not explode anything during the experimental part involving the peroxides…
