Congratulation to our PhD Mattia Bondanza for his publication on JPCL "Excited States of Xanthophylls Revisited: Toward the Simulation ofBiologically Relevant Systems". Xanthophylls are a class of oxygen-containing carotenoids, which play afundamental role in light-harvesting pigment−protein complexes and in many photoresponsive proteins. The complexity of the manifold of the electronic states and the large sensitivity to the environment still prevent a clear and coherent interpretation of their photophysics and photochemistry.
Congratulations to our Ph.D. students Federico Vivaldi, Andrea Bonini and Noemi Poma from the Chemistry Lab for Analytical Technologies and Sensors (CATS), for their recent review entitled "Three-Dimensional (3D) Laser-Induced Graphene: Structure, Properties, and Application to Chemical Sensing". Notwithstanding its relatively recent discovery, graphene has gone through many evolution steps and inspired a multitude of applications in many fields, from electronics to life science.
A new chemoenzymatic protocol for the preparation of 6-aminoisomannide was developed starting from renewable sources. The key step of the protocol was a biocatalysed highly regioselective acetylation of the 3-endo hydroxyl group of isosorbide, performed employing Immobilized Amano Lipase PS onto octadecyl methacrylate resin. The catalyst gave good results even on a large scale (10mmol) and it could be recycled 3 times without loss of selectivity.
Congratulations to our PhD students Michele Nottoli and Mattia Bondanza for their publication entitled: An enhanced sampling QM/AMOEBA approach: The case of the excited state intramolecular proton transfer in solvated 3-hydroxyflavone. In this work, we present an extension of the polarizable quantum mechanical (QM)/AMOEBA approach to enhanced sampling techniques.