Exploration de la dynamique de reconnaissance chirale

CELIA est un laboratoire de recherche de l'Université de Bordeaux. Voir www.celia.u-bordeaux.fr.

Un stage pour Master2 (ou équivalent) est disponible au laboratoire CELIA de l'Université de Bordeaux (www.celia.u-bordeaux.fr). Il concerne l'étude théorique de molécules chirales.

Résumé en anglais:

Chiral molecules are of paramount importance in biology because they are building blocks of organic matter, including human beings. Chiral molecules appear in pairs of left- and right-handed enantiomers, where their nuclear arrangements present non-superimposable mirror twins. The enantiomers of a chiral molecule interact differently with their environment as soon as this latter presents a chiral character, which is the case of most chemoreceptors of living organisms. Such enantio-sensitive interactions are commonly employed in pharmacology but the underlying mechanisms of chiral recognition are not well understood so far.

We will thus address this problem from a fundamental point of view. We will consider the dissociation of chiral dimers consisting of the aggregation of two enantiomers through hydrogen bonds (see the Figure). Dissociation is here interpreted as the inverse process of chiral recognition where enantiomers approach each other. As the distance between the two chiral components increases during the dissociation, we will characterize the chirality of the whole system in terms of the asymmetry of the photoelectron angular distribution resulting from the absorption of one ionizing photon [1,2]. Taking the response of single enantiomers as reference, this will enable us to define the critical distance where enantiomers start to recognize each other.

Les candidats peuvent soumettre leur candidature en ligne ou par mail à Bernard Pons.

Une thèse est prévue après le stage; elle impliquera une collaboration avec l'Université Autonome de Madrid. 

Les financements pour le stage et la thèse sont déjà disponibles.

Références :

[1] S. Beaulieu et al., New. J. Phys. 18, 102002 (2016) ; V. Wanie et al., Nature 630, 109 (2024) 

[2] A. Comby et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 7, 4514 (2016) ; V. Blanchet et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 23, 25612 (2021)

Etudiant Master 2 ou équivalent.