People
Shabnam Hematian
Field: Bioinorganic and Inorganic Chemistry; Biophysical and Environmental Chemistry
Room: 405 Sullivan Science Building
Phone: 336.334.5867
Email: s_hemati@uncg.edu
Research Website: https://chem.uncg.edu/hematian/
Education
B.S., National University of Iran
M.S., Sharif University of Technology
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology
Research
The Hematian Research Group is interested in metal-mediated small molecule activation and using bioinorganic and materials chemistry to address fundamental challenges in biological and energy sciences including catalysis, sustainability, and renewable energy. Our research is targeted towards manipulation of a broad range of redox processes that take place within protein scaffolds, synthetic coordination compounds, and on nanostructured electrocatalysts.
Metalloproteins have many different functions in cells, such as electron transfer, O2-transport, O2-reduction (oxidase activity), biological substrate oxygenation (oxygenase activity) or reduction of a variety of other biological substrates such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), molecular nitrogen (N2), carbon dioxide, hydrogen peroxide, sulfate, etc. Central to all of these processes is the presence of the unique metal cofactors within protein frameworks that allows metalloenzymes to perform functions such as redox reactions through optimizing the flow of protons and electrons between their various substrates.
Using nature as inspiration, we seek to understand the fundamental mechanisms underlying the role of metal ion cofactors in enzymes and developing artificial metalloenzyme or bio-inspired synthetic systems for applications in catalysis and beyond. We draw on expertise from a variety of areas including bioinorganic chemistry, inorganic synthesis, chemical biology, materials chemistry, and electrochemistry. Our group started off in August of 2018 and our work covers many different aspects of inorganic chemistry.
