Professor Jonathan Nitschke
- Professor of Chemistry
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About
Jonathan Nitschke was born in 1973 in Syracuse, New York. Following undergraduate studies (Williams College, MA) and graduate studies (Berkeley, CA) in the U.S., he undertook postdoctoral studies in France, and then started an independent research career at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). The Nitschke group moved to the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) in 2007.
Research
Research interests
- N
We are designing hollow supramolecular capsules or ‘cages’, which can be used to transport cargoes of molecules where we need them. These cages could be used to safely deliver drug therapies, reduce the costs and environmental effects of petroleum refining, and in many other areas.
We are interested in discovering and developing new ways in which simple building blocks may be induced to self-assemble into complex, functional structures. Our investigations currently focus upon the self-assembly of imine bonds around metal-ion templates, bringing both covalent C=N and coordinative N→Metal bonds into being during the same overall self-assembly process. The structures thus created can rearrange in well-defined ways at both covalent and coordinative linkages.