GAS PHASE ION CHEMISTRY: EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL APPROACH

In this framework the research activity concerns:

• Study of structure, properties and reactivity of gas phase ions produced by organic molecules, both naturally occurring or produced by synthesis.
• Study and reactivity of non covalent adduct between peptides, sugars, glycosides, drugs with metal ions or other ligands.
• Study of mono- and bimolecular, regio, stereo e chemoselective reactions occurring in the gas phase and produced by ions with different internal energy content. These reactions have carried out by using advanced mass spectrometry and theoretical calculations.
• Gas phase chiral recognition through the association of two chiral reagents thus forming non covalent diastereoisomeric adducts that differ in their formation energies.
• Characterization of organic residues in archaeological materials.

The present research activity involves wide classes of organic compounds, like heterocycles, together with pharmaceutics, i.e. quinolines and benzodiazepines, and bioorganic, i.e. glycosides and peptides, compounds.

CRYSTAL, MOLECULAR STRUCTURE AND POLYMORPHISM OF ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

The molecular and crystal structure determination of a given compound covers a great interest in many fields of the scientific research. The research activity in this frame concerns:

• Structure elucidation of unknown compounds whose structure cannot be unequivocally deducted by other methods
• The study the properties of the molecular structure, such as the determination of stereochemical features, absolute configuration and conformational parameters.
• The study of polymorphic structures, nowadays of great importance especially in the pharmaceutical field.
• The study of intermolecular properties, such as classical and non classical hydrogen bonds, molecular assembly, crystal packing, intermolecular forces, effects of solvation.  

Wide classes of heterocyclic compounds, such as oxazoles, thiazoles, quinolines, have been studied and characterized. Owing to their structural complexity and the large number of possibile isomeric structures, X-ray crystallography plays a key role in the determination of their structure.
A lot of studies are aimed at the determination of absolute configuration of organic molecules with pharmaceutical interest.

• Sistema GC-MS costituito da un gas cromatografo Varian 3800 accoppiato con uno spettrometro di massa Saturn 2000
• Spettrometro di massa electrospray/APCI con analizzatore a trappola ionica ThermoQuest LCQ Deca accoppiato a un sistema HPLC
• Diffrattometro a raggi X per cristallo singolo Siemens P4

L’attività di ricerca sopra esposta viene svolta mediante la conduzione di reazioni di sintesi, purificazione, estrazione di molecole organiche e esperimenti di spettrometria di massa avanzata, calcoli teorici e diffrattometria a raggi X.

PUBLICATIONS