A special invited lecture was organized by the Department of Chemistry, IIT
Bhilai, hosted by Dr. R Mayilmurugan (HOD of the Department of Chemistry & Bioscience
and Biomedical Engineering) on November 11, 2024. Prof. Rajiv Prakash, Director of IIT
Bhilai has explained about the importance of multidisciplinary research to address current
health issues. The speaker, Prof. Peter Comba from Universität Heidelberg, Germany, talked
about “The biological function of the patellamides in the Ascidian-Prochloron Symbiosis”.
Ascidians of the Pacific and Indian Oceans have been found to produce a variety of cyclic
peptides of various shapes and sizes and with multiple donor sets. Though their biological
function is unknown, these macrocycles have been known to form stable Cu(II) complexes.
They are proposed to be possibly involved in some tasks like metal ion transport, oxygen
activation, phosphate ester hydrolysis, and CO2 fixation. Interestingly, their team has
recently found that synthetic analogs are able to catalyze CO2 fixation, and if this were their
biological function, these complexes would be the first Cu-based carboanhydrase. Their
research team aims to thoroughly investigate the underlying mechanism allowing the
development of compounds for efficient CO2 separation (carbon capture).
The lecture was attended by the students and faculty of IIT Bhilai with great enthusiasm.