Seminar: Studies of Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis

July 11^th 2022, Sala Convegni at 11am

Mechanistic investigations of the water-splitting reaction of the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) of photosystem II (PSII) are fundamentally informed by structural studies of oxomanganese complexes. Many physical techniques have provided important insights into the OEC structure and function, including X-ray diffraction (XRD) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy as well as mass spectrometry (MS), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy applied in conjunction with mutagenesis studies. However, experimental studies have yet to yield consensus as to the nature of the reaction mechanism responsible for oxygen evolution. In this lecture, computational modeling studies will be introduced, including density functional (DFT) theory combined with quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) hybrid methods for explicitly describing the influence of the surrounding protein proposed chemically satisfactory models of the OEC that are maximally consistent with experimental results. The computational models are useful for rationalizing spectroscopic and crystallographic results and for building a complete structure-based mechanism of water-splitting as described by the intermediate oxidation states of oxomanganese complexes. Recent advances will be reviewed with emphasis on studies of the OEC of PSII and semiconductor materials functionalized biomimetic catalysts for artificial photosynthesis.

Bio: Victor S. Batista was brought up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and received his Licenciado en Ciencias Quimicas (B. Sc. in Chemistry) degree from the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (FCEyN) de la Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1989. In 1991 he moved to the USA and received his PhD degree in Chemistry from Boston University in 1996, where he also received the Sugata Ray Award in 1995 working under the mentorship of Prof. David F. Coker on the development of theoretical and computational methods to investigate photochemical reaction dynamics in the condensed phase. Following two postodoctoral research programs, working on semiclassical methods with Prof. William H. Miller at the University of California, Berkeley (1997–1999) and coherent-control techniques with Prof. Paul Brumer at the University of Toronto (2000-2001), he joined the Yale faculty as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 2001, where he became Associate Professor of Chemistry in 2005, Full Professor with tenure in 2008 and John Randolph Huffman Professor of Chemistry since 2019. He was Director of Undergraduate Studies (2008-2010).