By Dennis Peprah
Sunyani, Aug. 27, GNA – Professor Emmanuel Marfo-Owusu, the Foundation Dean of School of Sciences of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani would present the inaugural lecture of the University on Thursday, September 22 this year.
That would be the first inaugural lecture of the UENR, since its establishment in 2011, a statement issued and signed by Prof. Marfo-Owusu, currently the Head of Chemical Sciences Department of the University and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) indicated.
The lecture is on the topic “The Pathway for Ghana’s Development and Advancement in Chemical, Material, Pharmaceutical and Medical Sciences Research Breakthroughs: The X-Ray Crystallography and Supramolecular Chemistry Approach”.
“It will elaborate on advances of X-ray crystallography and supramolecular chemistry in science, medicine, pharmaceutical sciences and material science”, the statement added.
It would further highlight the Professor’s research studies on model systems for separation science using supramolecular concepts in designing zigzag channels with suitable molecular tectons such as sulfamethoxazole (SMZ, known for its antitumor or protease inhibitor activity) to entrap organic guest (8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQN, known for antibacterial and carcinogenic activities) molecules through non-covalent interactions between the interacting drug molecules as per revealed by X-ray crystallography techniques and analysis, it said.
The statement said “the knowledge in such a host-guest system can be employed in the area of separation science, as well as drug delivery and in the field of drug-receptor mechanisms”.
Similarly, other areas of the lecture include organic guest; benzimidazole (BIZ) molecules entrapped between zigzag channels formed by the building blocks of chloranilic acid molecules in hydrogen bonded charge transfer complex studies, it noted.
Charge transfer complexes, the statement explained, played an important role in biological systems particularly in enzymes where they act as intermediates in a wide variety of biological reactions.
“Charge transfer complexes are also being regarded as important materials for use as organic superconductors,” it indicated.
According to the statement the lecture would also elaborate on “how the bilayer structure arrangement (similar to the lipid bilayer structure in the biological cell membrane) observed in synthetic surfactant molecules (non-chiral) could be employed to trap chiral molecule {(R )-(+)-1,1’-Bi-2-napthol} and racemic molecule {Rac-1,1’-Bi-2-napthol} in a complexation phenomenon that suggests that the complexes are formed both in solution and solid state reaction as per revealed through solid state studies, inclusion crystallization and crystallography techniques, as well as application of supramolecular chemistry concepts”.
The studies have pharmaceutical significance, as well as its application in separation science, and biomembrane studies.
GNA