Professor Peter Edwards Project Titles
1. New facially capping ligands for the control of stability and shape in coordination chemistry and catalysis
Recent synthetic developments in phosphorus macrocycle chemistry have opened routes to phosphorus and phosphorus-nitrogen hybrid ligands that are ideally suited to facially capping a metal centre. They have the ability to stabilise intermediates important in catalysis as well as new classes of f-block and d-block metal complexes that have previously been difficult or impossible to study. This project is to investigate the coordination chemistry of these new ligands and survey the reactivity of their complexes in organometallic chemistry and catalysis.
2. Multidentate nitrogen polypodal and macrocyclic ligands in non-invasive biomedical imaging
We have recently developed routes to a range of tripodal and macrocyclic amido/imino and amino/imino ligands (including cryptands) that may be varied to suit selective binding of specific metals of importance in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. Recent results have shown that these ligands bind suitable metals well, and they may be functionalised to allow the incorporation of pendant groups that will impart binding specificity to chosen biological structures (i.e. allow the design of specifically targeted imaging probes). Our current interest is in developing applications of these imaging probes in cardiovascular diseases, cancer and neurological diseases and we collaborate with colleagues in Biosciences and Medicine as well as with PETIC (the Cardiff PET Centre).