Another availability of one experimental thesis DEB – Dr. Bruno Mattia Bizzarri

Students enrolled in our Master’s degree courses are informed that an experimental thesis is available at the Organic Chemistry Laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Raffaele Saladino.

The experimental thesis, focused on the topic “Applications of lunar and Martian insoluble organic matter in the synthesis of bioactive molecules,” falls within the fields of astrobiology and prebiotic chemistry.

Recently, a unifying model for the origin of life, referred to as the primordial multifunctional organic entity (PriME) scenario, has been proposed. This model suggests that the insoluble organic matter (IOM) found in lunar and Martian meteorites (carbonaceous chondrites) may have played a crucial role in the three most critical processes involved in the origin of life, such as the supply and accumulation of organic molecules that are the building blocks of life. Due to its insolubility, IOM has been difficult to characterize in detail at the molecular level and is primarily known through spectroscopic, physical, and chemical/pyrolytic analyses. The key structural characteristics and properties of IOM, found in carbonaceous chondrites, are shared by melanins, the ubiquitous dark phenolic polymers that are insoluble and present in nearly all living organisms, as well as by hydrogen cyanide (HCN) polymers, a molecule ubiquitous in the Universe, whose chemistry is central to studies on the origin of life. The study will primarily focus on the synthesis and characterization of IOM-like polymers which, given their known semiconductor properties, will subsequently be used as catalysts in the synthesis of bioactive molecules such as 6-cyanopurines. During the thesis work, molecular identification analyses using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) will be conducted.

For more information, please contact Dr. Bruno Mattia Bizzarri – bm.bizzarri@unitus.it