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John G. O'Brien
Professor of Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
Truman State University
Kirksville, MO 63501
(660) 785-4608
(660) 785-4045 (fax)
jobrien@truman.edu
Find more information (course syllabi, exams, etc.) at Dr. O'Brien's "other" homepage.
Education
- B.S., Northwest Missouri State University
- Ph.D., University of Kansas
Courses Taught
- Chemistry for Contemporary Living
- Chemical Principles I
- Chemical Principles II
- Organic Chemistry I
- Organic Chemistry Lab I
- Organic Chemistry II
- Organic Chemistry Lab II
- Inorganic Chemistry I
- Inorganic Chemistry II
- Junior Chemistry Seminar
- JINS Course: The Chemistry of Art (pdf file)
Research Interests
Dr. O'Brien's group is oriented towards synthetic chemistry. We currently have several projects utilizing transition metals in organic synthesis, either as catalysts or as reaction templates, to make large rings of atoms, or macrocycles. Additionally, we study the macrocyclic products of our synthetic efforts as models for living systems. Examples of how living systems use transition metals include photosynthesis in plants (chlorophyll) and oxygen transport in animals (hemoglobin). Interestingly, the active sites of both hemoglobin and chlorophyll incorporate the same naturally occurring macrocycle, porphyrin (shown below). Dr. O'Brien's macrocyclic research focuses primarily on oxygen carriers and involves the synthesis of new macrocyclic ligands (not porphyrins) which, when furnished with the proper transition metal, can act as reversible oxygen carriers and thereby model the performance of hemoglobin.
Dr. O'Brien's group is also interested in modeling the protein portion of globular proteins. In our group, this is accomplished by forcing extremely large rings (30-40 atoms) into interesting shapes such as threaded or interlocked rings (rotoxanes and catenanes, respectively) and knots. The concepts of this project, which are supramolecular in nature, are relatively easy to understand, but are rather difficult to put into practice. A cartoon of a simple [2]catenane, defined as two mechanically interlocked rings, is shown below.
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| Porphyrin | Catenane Cartoon |