International Summer School PROGRAM - Laboratoire d'Infochimie ...

Catalysts within Dynamic Combinatorial Libraries
Hugo Fanlo Virgós,
Sijbren Otto*
Centre for Systems Chemistry, Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of
Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
How to predict the structure of catalysts that selectively target specific substrates is one
of the biggest challenges that chemistry currently faces. Very often, the catalystsubstrate
affinity needs a combination of structurally and chemically complementary
features between both molecular entities that are difficult to anticipate. Our approach to
identify catalysts by using Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry simplifies catalyst design
by letting the molecules choose to interact according to their own “preferences”. By
mixing a combination of molecular building blocks able to form reversible hydrazone
bonds (-C(O)-N(H)-N=C-, see scheme) a set of potential catalysts can be selfassembled.
The interactions of these potential catalysts with the substrate will determine
the stability of the host-guest adducts (thus their relative population) and are a first
requirement for catalysis. By screening the combinatorial libraries for affinity for a
Transition-State Analog we should be able to predict if a transition state of a catalyzed
reaction could also interact and therefore be stabilized.
=
O
N
N C
H H