Research Projects

Objective: Synthesis of artificial receptors: Biomimetic molecularly imprinted polymers

Summary: Producing artificial receptors alternate to biological receptor molecules such as antibodies, proteins and enzymes have major interest in many applications. Although methods have been developed to produce artificial receptor molecules, creating the artificial receptors with unique selectivity and stability which can be used in harsh environment (extreme pH, temperature, and organics solvent) is lacking. Computational approaches (density functional theory (DFT) modelling and molecular dynamics (MD)) will be utilized here to synthesis molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs), with unique stability and selectivity, alternate to biological receptors. The produced MIPs were tested for their applications in environmental monitoring, separation and diagnosis.