Research Areas

Our research interests are primarily focused on the investigation of the three-dimensional structures and properties of biological molecules, particularly proteins and nucleic acids, in atomic detail and their correlation with biological activity. The methods we use are largely multi-dimensional and multi-nuclear NMR techniques and molecular dynamics simulations. We develop rapid NMR methodologies, which speed up both the acquisition and the analysis of multidimensional NMR data by several orders of magnitude, thus expanding the capability of NMR. We use variety of methods based on optical spectroscopy that include fluorescence and circular dichroism and isothermal titration calorimetry, differential scanning calorimetry, and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight in our experimental studies. Besides, we also use the techniques of protein chemistry and molecular biology for biosynthetic expression of proteins and their site-directed mutagenesis

Doddi research group activities span a range of areas in modern day organometallic chemistry. The focus is to design & development of novel and unsual organometallic molecular species with the main aim of their potential applications in homogeneous catalysis. We are broadly interested in developing suitable ligands (carbenes, pincers of various type) whose unique reactivity studied for mono/bimetallic complexes, these will be used for the small-molecule activations, and co-operative catalytic studies, applied for organic transformations. The group investigates on the emerging fields of organometallic main group chemistry to exploit their broad applications in the domain of Main Group Catalysis (Expensive-Nobel Metal Free Catalysis) which is an alternative, in-expensive, and non-toxic chemical approach in various synthetic transformations. Besides, we also aim to develop novel single source FLPs (Frustrated Lewis Acid-Base Pairs), and aqueous organometallic chemistry (organometallics in water media) for the exciting explorations in small molecule activation, and enviromentally benign green catalytic approaches respectively.

In frontier areas, employing state-of-the-art computational methodologies, our group works on real problems that can be verified with experiments. Drug discovery, drug delivery, study of biological phenomena, gas adsorption, energy storage, and chemical sensing are being the current on-going research of the group. Besides, we are interested in fundamental studies, exploration of reaction mechanism, catalytic behavior, and method development/programming. Early prediction, advanced discovery, and feasibility checks are usually an obvious outcome in many computational studies. While both Classical and ab initio or density functional theory (DFT) simulation methods are often used, depending on scopes suitable laboratory experiments for systems undergoing computer simulations are pursued to establish coherence between simulation and experiment.

Our group are focusing on the progress of the homogeneous organometallic catalysis system where attached ligand plays a significant role in the small molecule and/or substrate activation. The development of sustainable working platform is the main target where the readily available substrates areconverted to the useful value-added chemicals by a catalytic process. The atom economic factor of a reaction and the energy efficient techniques are the pillars of these kind of research projects. We are also working on the renewable fuels which are the major priorities in the current time. The development of chemical reaction to generate energy carrier or fuels from the renewable sources are targeted where appropriate organometallic compounds are used for the catalytic chemical transformations.

The research in my group is focused on ‘catalysis’, in particular on the use of catalysis to effect enantioselectivity in organic transformations. Our focus is also on developing new ligands and catalysts, introducing new concepts for asymmetric catalysis and exploiting them to solve the challenges in the asymmetric synthesis. Motivated by the zeal to provide practical solutions to the existing problems in asymmetric synthesis, our group aims to contribute to the development of the processes that are scalable, efficient from the point of view of atom economy and are environmentally benign.

Without organic molecules such as medications, crop-protections, nutrition’s, fragrances and flavours, life would be neither convenient nor possible. Our research program emphases total synthesis of biologically active natural products or model compounds having potentially bioactive, targeted molecules possess unique challenges in asymmetric bond construction. We also work on the development of enantioselective catalysis with high levels of enantioselectivity and purity. Our research program is dedicated to the development and application of new catalytic methods in the area of organic chemistry in order to facilitate the way organic molecules are made with high enantiopurity.

Our research involves the design, synthesis, and characterization of new molecules and their conjugates with interesting biological and remedial properties. Current research projects mainly focused on utilizing the natural interactions such as ion-ion, ion-ligand, hydrophobic, and hydrophilic, etc., on building the molecular systems capable of enhancing the drug efficacy, which can also help reduce the side effects. We also utilize the concept of drug repurposing and drug repositioning to design and synthesize combination therapeutics to deal with the drug resistance. Ultimately, we utilize nanomedicine as a tool to bridge basic and translation research to bring newer and better technologies. We also utilize the specificity of the chemical and biological interactions to design and develop new molecular and nano-based bio/chemo-sensor, which can be utilized as effective tools for the selective and sensitive detection of biologically relevant analytes. For more details visit the lab website.

Considering the global energy demand of the modern civilization, the main research interest of this group is to design more robust and environmentally sustainable alternative luminescent nanomaterials (especially metal free approach) having larger extent of visible light absorption cross section and efficient internal charge separation process for solar fuel generation by means of photocatalytic solar water splitting and CO2 photo-reduction. One of the major aim of this group is to fabricate complete benign all organic artificial light harvesting nano-dimensional architecture.The group is constantly working on different aspect of photon harvesting phenomena in artificial light harvesting devices and understanding the unidirectional energy migration process for artificial photosynthesis using self-assembled π-conjugated nanomaterials. Besides, fabrication and optimization of functional nanomaterials for waste water treatment, and exciton dynamics of semiconducting nanomaterials (by using picosecond to femto second time resolved spectroscopy) for photonics and optoelectronics are also topics of this group .