The Nitschke Group at the University of Cambridge designs hollow molecules that act as capsules or cages that enclose guest molecules. These cages have exciting potential applications in a variety of fields. They could, for example, be tailored to deliver drugs to where they are needed or to remove a pollutant molecule from a solution. In work recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the team report on the exciting discoveries they have made using hierarchically-nested host molecules, with an outer host encapsulating an inner host, which holds the guest molecule. In their newly-designed ‘Russian doll’ molecules, they found that encapsulation can improve the binding properties of the inner host. Their results also present a novel way to fix the stereochemistry of a host framework. Such molecules could be used in applications that rely on molecular-recognition, such as catalysis, separations, drug delivery, and sensing.
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Source: Phys.org