Supramolecular Chemistry Lab Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Dr. Debapratim Das
Professor Department of Chemistry Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati North Guwahati, Assam, India 781039 Ph: +91 361 258 3301 Fax: +91 361 258 2349 Email: ddas@iitg.ac.in
Welcome to Supramolecular Chemistry Lab
Right thing at the right place, that is how nature works. As a chemistry research group, our main goal is to learn from nature and mimic it for the development of new materials and tools. As astarting point, we are trying to mimic the natural polymeric materials using small synthetic peptides with the help of a supramolecular host, Cucurbituril. In this process, we aim to understand the guest binding mechanism of these unique host molecules. An interesting feature of this group of hosts is the ability to accommodate and bind two guests simultaneously and thereby allowing non-covalent type of conjugation for important molecules. It is our primary aim to exploit this unique binding property to conjugate small peptidic fragments to generate otherwise synthetically extremely challenging peptidic networks. This in turn will pave the way to generate newer, efficient, and non cytotoxic soft materials for controlled release of drugs which is the demand of the time. As a continuation of ths process, we want to understand the mechanism of the binding of these supramolecular hosts with natural molecules like phospholipids, lipids, proteins to name a few. This in turn will lead to the formation of novel self-assemblies to be utilized for diversified applications including drug delivery, self-sorting materials, smart self-healing materials as well as some novel bio-sensors.