Making Chemicals "Shake Hands"

Dr. Mark Stradiotto and his graduate students spend working days trying to make chemicals shake hands, in a manner of speaking. Their focus is on the development of new classes of metal complexes whose unique construction allows for their application as catalysts - substances that accelerate the rate orease of a chemical reaction without themselves being consumed. Metal-containing catalysts of this type are extremely important in everyday chemistry and are involved in 80-90 per cent of industrial chemical processes. Comparing a catalytic reaction to a "handshake" with two hands (the substrate and the catalyst) interlocking perfectly to fit, the Stradiotto group targets appropriately designed metal complexes to use as catalysts to best fit certain chemical transformations.

The Stradiotto group is funded by a number of regional, national, and international organizations, including: Dalhousie University; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the Canadian Foundation for Innovation; the Killam Trusts; Boehringer-Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.; Research Corporation (USA); and the Springboard (Atlantic) Network. Stradiotto has also been recognized for his performance in teaching and research in the form of the Dalhousie Undergraduate Chemistry Society Teaching Award, as well as the Killam Research Prize and the Harry Shirreff Research Prize.

In 2006, Dr. Stradiotto was awarded the Dalhousie Innovation Award. This award is intended to encourage and advance innovative research with strong commercial potential. The award is sponsored by Dalhousie University, the Office of Economic Development for Nova Scotia, the IWK Health Centre and the Capital District Health Authority. The winner was selected by InNOVAcorp and the Industry Liaison and Innovation office at Dalhousie University. Notably, the research enabled by this prize resulted in a commercialization agreement with Strem Chemicals Inc. of Newburyport Massachusett (USA) for the production, marketing and selling for research purposes of a selection of ligands and catalysts developed by the Stradiotto group.

Dalhousie University President Tom Traves noted the collaboration that this work and the Innovation Award represents: “This is an excellent example of working across the campus and the wider community to leverage all of our various strengths.”