Author(s): Bairagi K; Shamekhi M; Tountas I; Letourneau N; Peslherbe GH; Piekny A; Oh JK;

The development of stimuli-responsive amphiphilic block copolymers and their nanoassemblies/nanogels integrated with degradable covalent chemistry undergoing chemical transitions has been extensively explored as a promising platform for tumor-targeting controlled/enhanced drug delivery. The conjugate aromatic imine bond is unique in responding to acidic p ...

Article GUID: 40637173

Author(s): Shamekhi M; Toghraei A; Guay D; Peslherbe GH;

The lack of active and selective catalysts hinders transition to the electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) as an environmentally friendly route for on-site ammonia production under ambient conditions. In search of active NRR electrocatalysts, we generated a dataset of surface and ordered intermetallic alloys using density functional theory (DF ...

Article GUID: 40626812

Author(s): Jodaeeasl N; Wang S; Hu A; Peslherbe GH;

The capture of toxic chemicals such as NH3, H2S, NO2 and SO2 is essential due to the tremendous threats they pose to human health and the environment. The M-MOF-74 family of metal-organic frameworks has recently gained attention as a promising category of sorbent materials for the capture of toxic chemicals; however, no clear and comprehensive relationshi ...

Article GUID: 39829319

Author(s): Parmar V; Orabi EA; English AM; Peslherbe GH;

Nitroglycerin is a potent vasodilator in clinical use since the late 1800s. It functions as a prodrug that is bioactivated by formation of an enzyme-based thionitrate, E-Cys-NO2. This intermediate reportedly decomposes to release NO and NO2- but their relative yields remain controversial. Hence, we determined barriers for NO and NO2- production from the m ...

Article GUID: 39738238

Author(s): Toubin C; Yeung DY; English AM; Peslherbe GH;

The degradation of S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs) to release NO is believed to be catalyzed by CuI ions, but the mechanism remains unclear. Kinetic experiments have shown that decomposition rates vary significantly with the chemical nature of the RSNO considered. On the basis of first-principles calculations, the catalytic role of CuI ion is investigated for the ...

Article GUID: 12475301

Author(s): Hernández de la Peña L; Peslherbe GH;

Nonequilibrium simulation methods and rigid-body path-integral techniques are combined to estimate the relevance of protonic quantum effects in the free energy of ion-water clusters. The Crooks' fluctuation relation is used to quantitatively characterize the impact of quantum effects on the dissociation free energy of the paradigm I(-)(H(2)O)(5). By u ...

Article GUID: 20377185

Author(s): Nguyen TN; Timerghazin QK; Vach H; Peslherbe GH;

Molecular electronic excitation in (O(2))(n) clusters induced by mechanical collisions via the "chemistry with a hammer" is investigated by a combination of molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemistry calculations. Complete active space self-consistent field augmented with triple-zeta polarizable basis set quantum chemistry calculations of a comp ...

Article GUID: 21322678

Author(s): Varadwaj PR; Varadwaj A; Peslherbe GH; Marques HM;

Density functional theory calculations, together with quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) analyses, have been performed to investigate 18-azacrown-6 complexes of the high-spin late first transition series divalent metal ions in the gas phase and, in some cases, in aqueous solution simulated by a polarizable continuum model. Six intramolecular H-H ...

Article GUID: 21961695

Author(s): Mak CC; Timerghazin QK; Peslherbe GH;

Upon photoexcitation of iodide-water clusters, I(-)(H(2)O)(n), an electron is transferred from iodide to a diffuse cluster-supported, dipole-bound orbital. Recent femtosecond photoelectron spectroscopy experiments have shown that, for photoexcited I(-)(H(2)O)(n) (n= 5), complex excited-state dynamics ultimately result in the stabilization of the transferr ...

Article GUID: 22466252

Author(s): Shadrina MS; English AM; Peslherbe GH;

The diffusion of small gases to special binding sites within polypeptide matrices pivotally defines the biochemical specificity and reactivity of proteins. We investigate here explicit O(2) diffusion in adult human hemoglobin (HbA) as a case study employing the recently developed temperature-controlled locally enhanced sampling (TLES) method and vary the ...

Article GUID: 22690872

Author(s): Varadwaj PR; Varadwaj A; Peslherbe GH;

The proton accepting and donating abilities of cyclopropenylidene (c-C(3)H(2)) on its complexation with hydrogen halides H-X (X = F, Cl, Br) are analyzed using density-functional theory with three functionals (PBE0, B3LYP, and B3LYP-D) and benchmarked against second-order Møller-Plesset (MP2) theory. Standard signatures including, inter alia, dipole momen ...

Article GUID: 22696309