Faraday Discussion 148: Spectroscopy, Theory and Mechanism in Bioinorganic Chemistry

Topics: Biochemistry, Molecular Modeling, Physical Chemistry, Keywords: see below

Date: /5/6/7/ July 2010, Nottingham, United Kingdom, Europe

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Official Information:

Metal centres play a very important role in many biological systems, and especially in the reactivity of proteins and enzymes. The biochemistry of metalloproteins is determined to a large degree by the fundamental chemical properties of the metal centre. A wide range of powerful spectroscopic methods can provide direct insight into these chemical properties. Modern computational methods, especially density functional theory, are able to provide a detailed description of the metal centres, their properties, and their reactivity. This meeting will be aimed at exploring the key challenges in understanding the biological chemistry of metals.

Themes

• Copper chemistry. Redox behaviour, oxygen binding, multi-copper centres, catalysis and mechanisms
• Haem and non-haem iron, and other metal centres
• Insight from advanced spectroscopic methods, including time-resolved structural studies
• Reaction mechanisms: what do we learn from computation and spectroscopy?
• Computational techniques: DFT, QM/MM, MD, and others...