Congratulations to Dr. David Goldberg who has been awarded the ACS 2023 Maryland Chemist of the Year for his outstanding contributions to inorganic chemistry. Dr. Goldberg will be presented with the award on February 8, 2024. Please see his award lecture abstract below.

“Heme and Nonheme Transition Metal Centers: Synthetic Biomimetic Complexes for Small Molecule Activation, Mechanistic Insights, and Catalysis”
Small molecule activation by transition metal centers is at the heart of chemistry and biology. Some of
the most important and difficult challenges facing humanity include disease, energy transduction and
storage, and environmental sustainability, and in all of these areas small molecules (e.g. O2, N2, CO2,
NO, H2S, CH4) and their redox transformations mediated by transition metal centers play an essential
role. Nature employs a remarkable class of biomolecules known as metalloenzymes to carry out these
transformations. With inspiration from nature, our laboratory designs and synthesizes novel transition
metal complexes as structural, spectroscopic, and functional analogs of the metal-containing active sites
found in both heme and nonheme metalloenzymes. This talk will describe our efforts in the synthesis of
new organic ligands and their related heme and nonheme transition metal complexes for the activation
of small molecules such as dioxygen (O2) and nitric oxide (NO). Metal ions of biological significance
and environmental compatibility will be the focus, including iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn). The
isolation, trapping, and spectroscopic characterization of rare, metastable analogs of mechanistic
intermediates will be highlighted, including high-valent metal-oxo and metal-hydroxo species, as well
as metal-dioxygen and metal-nitrosyl adducts. The reactivity and mechanism of these complexes in
fundamental processes such as proton-coupled electron-transfer (PCET), oxygen-atom-transfer (OAT),
and metal-ligand radical transfer reactions will be discussed, together with kinetic, thermodynamic, and
computational analyses.