Emergent Self-Assembly of

Giant Coordination Polyhedra

Seminar Program

Av. Països Catalans, 16, Campus Sescelades (St. Pere i St. Pau), Tarragona. Tel. 977920200

Prof. Makoto Fujita The University of Tokyo (Japan)

Thursday 5th July, 2012. ICIQ Auditorium, 12 p.m.

2012

Professional Career

Sponsored by

Makoto Fujita is Professor of Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan. He received his Ph. D. degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1987. After working in Chiba University, Institute for Molecular Science (IMS) at Okazaki, and Nagoya University, he moved to the current position in 2002.

In view of constructing nanoscale discrete structures, Fujita has pioneered a novel principle of metal-directed self-assembly, in which transition-metal ions induce the spontaneous formation of targeted large frameworks. His method features an extremely elegant use of palladium's square planar coordination geometry which was first demonstrated in 1990 by the self-assembly of a Pd(II)-bipyridine square complex. Later on, a large variety of related molecules has been synthesized such as, in particular, cages, capsules, tubes, catenanes, and spheres. Most of these structures have large hydrophobic cavities, within which Fujita elaborated and studied unique molecular recognition events that led to controlled chemical reactions and induced physical properties, at a very early stage of this research area. These earlier studies have strongly contributed to trigger the rapid development of molecular self-assembly in the course of the last twenty years. Since 1994, Fujita has also strongly contributed to the field of porous coordination networks. About 270 publications between 1980 and 2012; more than 300 lectures and seminars at international or Japanese meetings, in universities or in industrial or governmental research centers. According to ISI Web of Knowledge, Makoto Fujita is a "Most-Cited Scientists in Chemistry” (around 17,000 citations). His h-index is equal to 70.

Research Interests