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What is the IRTG-MS-NG ?

Chemistry has arrived at a stage where the active interplay of its subdisciplines will allow to design and control systems of increasing complexity that is directly associated with their specific molecular function. A key to success in this modern chemical development is to use and apply the whole range of possible intermolecular interactions to create complex functional systems and/or control their action with substrate molecules or reagents. A group of each nine research teams from Nagoya, Japan, and Münster, Germany, together comprising state of the art expertise of the most important areas of intermolecular interactions, will join forces in this International Research Training Group to understand, develop, and apply Complex Functional Systems in catalysis, bio-related and materials chemistry. The pivot of the educational program is the students' learning about and applying of intermolecular interactions from an utmost broad range of areas and perspectives of modern chemistry. Each doctoral student will have a German and a Japanese advisor, who are equally responsible for mentoring the progress of the dissertation. The German students must be willing to work for at least 6 months time on their joint project in the laboratory of the scientific partner group in Nagoya. We expect that both the participating Japanese and German doctoral students will gain an essential advantage over their conventionally educated peers from their extensive international experience by carrying out their doctoral work and receiving their scientific post-graduate education equally balanced at top scientific institutions in Japan and Germany. With a rapidly increasing global orientation of the chemical and chemistry related industries it will be a great advantage for young German scientists to have gained substantial practical experience before the postdoctoral level by doing a significant part of their early scientific work at a top university in Asia and vice versa for the Japanese doctoral students in Germany.

Research in the IRTG

The top areas of actual chemical research are changing rapidly. The future in experimental chemistry lies in the challenge to govern and control systems of an increasing complexity that is directly associated with its specific molecular function. A key to success in this modern chemical development is to use and apply the whole range of possible intermolecular interactions to create complex functional systems and/or control their action with substrate molecules or reagents. Complex molecular systems are found in key areas of modern science, such as organic synthesis, catalysis, bio-related chemistry and materials science. At first glance, these sub disciplines seem to follow very different interests. However, the basic principles of designing complex systems are similar. Thus, on the molecular level key interactions like hydrogen bonding, Coulomb interactions, hydrophobic effects, van der Waals interactions, magnetic interactions etc. determine the interplay between molecular building blocks and hence the structure of the whole entity. This is valid for small molecular systems, polymers, biopolymers, lipids, small and large molecules on surfaces, organic-inorganic hybrid materials and inorganic solids alike.

The challenge is to define common rules based on these interactions for the synthesis of complex functional systems. To give an example from the catalysis area: can the concepts from solution phase catalyst design also be applied in biocatalysis and vice versa? These two areas are rather close and in fact many examples of successful knowhow-transfer between these two disciplines have appeared in the literature to date. The currently heavily investigated field of organocatalysis is a prominent example. A more challenging task is establishing a link between solution phase catalysis and catalysis on surfaces (immobilized catalysts) or the technically important heterogeneous catalysis. Or even further, can knowledge gained from solution phase catalysis be used to design new complex functional materials, for example functional polymers or organic-inorganic hybrids? Can catalysts be used to alter properties of a given material? Can catalysts be used to organize structures?

The motivation of the International Research Training Group is to gather a group of scientists from a broad range of chemical sub-disciplines with complementary expertise about the nature, the characterization, the experimental control, the application of various types of interactions between molecules and/or molecular assemblies to understand, develop, and apply Complex Functional Systems . To cover the whole range of experimental tools and methodologies necessary to understand and use intermolecular interactions to design, develop and apply functional chemical systems we have specifically selected a group of scientists from the University of Münster, each contributing high level expertise on different intermolecular interactions to this International Research Training Group [e.g.: hydrogen bonding (Erker, Göttlich, Studer); ó-/ð-interaction and van der Waalsinteraction (Erker); hydrophilic, hydrophobic interactions, substrate-receptor fitting (Hofmann, Wünsch), dipolar interaction, magnetic interaction (Eckert), electronic interaction, electron-transfer, oligomer hybridization (Würthwein)]. In addition we have found a group of scientists from Nagoya University of a closely matching complementary expertise on studying intermolecular interactions in complex chemical systems [e.g.: coordinative bonding at very electrophilic metal centers (Tatsumi), weak interactions in catalysis (Noyori, Kitamura), theoretical treatment of intermolecular interactions (Ohmine), ð-stacking, optoelectronic devices (Seki), magnetic interactions (Awaga), supramolecular orientation of nanotubes (Shinohara), photophysical interactions (Yamaguchi), interactions of proteins, enzyme-design (Watanabe)].

The aim of the new International Research Training Group in which scientists working in a broad range of technically different but conceptionally related areas of the chemical sciences are gathered to define common concepts based on intermolecular interactions for the preparation of complex functional systems. Interactions between bio-related chemistry and materials science, between catalysis and biochemistry (vide supra), between synthesis and biocatalysis, as well as between synthesis and materials science are meanwhile well established in modern science. However, the attempt to gather all these research efforts at two related partner universities into a single research and graduate teaching program, in the best Humboldtian sense, is uncommon, innovative and very challenging.