GRAB INTEREST

There has been a great deal of resurgence in boron chemistry in recent years. In the relatively small span of a decade, tricoordinate triarylboranes and tetracoordinate BODIPY dyes have emerged as one of the most sought after candidates in various fields of "Organic Materials." The coordinatively unsaturated tricoordinate boron is inherently Lewis acid and forms complex with Lewis bases. This phenomenon has been well exploited in sensing small molecules like OH, H-, CN-, and F-. In biology, several protein catalases' active site is nothing but Lewis basic hydroxyl/amine groups. Obviously, a simple Lewis acid can be employed to control the activity of Lewis basic biocatalysts. It took nearly 100 years for medicinal chemists to implement this simple concept in drug design successfully. Combining our academic curiosity on boron with the quest for developing new materials and medicines, we are trying to find answers to fundamental questions pertaining to our day-to-day life.

WORK AT OUR GROUP

Our research area is highly interdisciplinary, involving aspects of organic, organometallic, polymer, and Nanomaterials chemistry of BORON. Our group is engaged in the design and synthesis of new molecules/materials containing BORON for the potential application in the field of Catalysis, Molecular Electronics (OLEDs, TFTs, and solar cells), and Chemosensory materials. We are also involved in exploiting the Lewis acidity of tricoordinate boron to develop boron-based proteasome inhibitors (BPI) and understand the differences in the catalytic activity of multiple proteolytic sites in both eukaryotic and bacteria proteasomes. Our long-range goals to utilize the acquired knowledge to design novel BPIs to control proteasome activities in specific diseases. We are also actively pursuing the design and development of small molecules for targeting RNA and small molecule-based luminophores for bioimaging studies.