FWO-MTA mobility project – first visit

By the help of a joint FWO-MTA mobility grant Dr. Vincent Ching and Kevin Nys visited our laboratory between 12-16 June 2018. The title of the project is “Structural analysis of copper-drug complexes relevant for chelation therapy by using pulsed-EPR and SXRD methods”.

By the help of this FWO-MTA mobility grant our goal is to use pulsed-EPR methods to determine the couplings of far ligand protons for the CuL2 complexes of some hydroxypyridinecarboxylic acids (HPC) in order to detect the cis/trans isomer ratio in solutions. The investigation may be subtended to the crystallization and pulsed-EPR measurements of other HPC derivatives or other biologically relevant paramagnetic metal complexes as well. Structural comparison between the SXRD and EPR results obtained in the different phases will provide interesting new features of the intramolecular and intermolecular interactions of the complexes, and reveal structural transformations which can bring us closer to the understanding of their biological functions.