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Markus Albrecht

Molecular recognition and self-assembly processes play an essential role in the formation and function of biological systems. Hereby non-covalent interactions allow the reversible formation of bonds and the build up of large structures with defined functions. A very strong non-covalent interaction is the coordinative bond of organic donor ligands to metal ions. In artificial systems this can be used to obtain in metal-directed molecular self-assembly processes different types of supramolecular multinuclear coordination compounds.

The self-assembly of helicate-type complexes from oligodentate ligands and two or more metal ions is an important part of metallo-supramolecular chemistry. The design of appropriate ligands, the fascinating structures of the self-assembled coordination compounds and the mechanisms of metal-directed self-assembly processes are the main interests of our research. The results which are obtained lead to an understanding of very simple but important principles of natural processes like cooperativity, templating or allosteric effects.

Build on this basic research we are additionally investigating in the ability of the self-assembled supramolecular coordination compounds to act as receptors for small molecules or ions and we are using simple supramolecular combinatorial libraries ("mixtures of supramolecular aggregates") to obtain in dynamic processes new receptor/substrate complexes by addition of appropriate substrates ("templates") to the libraries.

Amino acid and peptide derived ligands lead to dinuclear metal complexes which mimic the structures of active centers in metallo-enzymes and enable the stabilization of peptide microstructures. The bioactive parts of naturally occuring cyclopeptides or peptide loops (Segetalines, RGD, ...) can be conformationally fixed in metallomacrocycles which are obtained by simple mixing of peptide bridged diligands with appropriate metal ions or metal complex fragments.

Career Highlights

Markus Albrecht was born in 1964 and studied Chemistry in Würzburg and Münster. He obtained his Dr. rer. nat. in 1992 for his work on organometallic planar-tetracoordinate carbon compounds (research group of Prof. Gerhard Erker).
After one year as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratories of Prof. Kenneth N. Raymond in Berkeley (bioinorganic chemistry) he moved to the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the University of Karlsruhe and received his habilitation in 1997.
His work on the metal-directed self-assembly of metallo-supramolecular aggregates was honored with the „ADUC-Jahrespreis für Habilitanden" and between 1998 and 2001 he was a Heisenberg-fellow of the DFG. In 2002 his teaching was awarded with the "Landeslehrpreis 2002 des Landes Baden-Württemberg".
Since spring 2002 he is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen.

Books

Dekker Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Important Articles

Template-Directed Assembly of Dinuclear Triple-Stranded Helicates

By this Researcher

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