Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Circular dichroism (CD) is a spectroscopic technique routinely used by chemists and biochemists to study the chirality of molecules. Chiral molecules or biomolecules (such as DNA and proteins) folded into a particular three-dimensional structure always exhibit characteristic spectral features in their CD spectra. Thus CD spectra provide crucial information about the chirality of the molecular system under investigation and are often treated as the fingerprint of the molecular system. These fingerprints are extremely important for structure identification. A CD spectropolarimeter is a must-have item in laboratories to study molecular chirality. The requested modern CD spectropolarimeter will provide new research capabilities such as simultaneous CD/fluorescence detection and automatic temperature scanning that are currently unavailable in the Chemistry Department at Queen's. With these enhanced capabilities, our research programs will be able to remain internationally competitive in the important areas of DNA structure and folding, DNA-based new luminescent materials, supramolecular chemistry, chiral polymers, and chiral photonics. This CD spectropolarimeter will also provide valuable training opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows so that they become familiar with modern analytical techniques that are routinely used in any biomedical research laboratory in both academic and industrial environments.