Departmental Seminar - Dr. Hua-Zhong "Hogan" Yu, Simon Fraser University - Tuesday December 6, 2022 @ 2:00 pm in SSC 1511

Date: Tuesday December 6, 2022

Time: 2:00 p.m.

Location: SSC 1511

Dr. Hua-Zhong “Hogan” Yu,

Simon Fraser University

Department of Chemistry and 4D Labs

Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.

Title: Quantitation of Supramolecular Host-Guest Complexation on Surface: from Nano-structural Differentiation to Electrochemical Sensing

The macrocyclic cucurbit[n]uril (CB[n]) hosts have shown dramatically increased research interests for the past two decades; their excellent guest recognition capability leads to their application potentials as synthetic immobilization and bioconjugation motifs. For example, the inclusion complexes formed between CB[7] and various ferrocene (Fc) derivatives have extremely high binding affinities (10⁹ to 10¹² M^-1), which have been employed as an alternative of natural binding pairs (e.g., antigen-antibody, biotin-avidin) for fabricating versatile biosensing interfaces. Based on both conventional cyclic voltammetry and advanced structural characterization, the complexation of Fc@CB[7] has been investigated on mixed ferrocenylundecanethiolate / octanethiolate self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold. The results showed that the inclusion binding behavior of this host-guest pair, while significantly affected by the surface, still has satisfactory stability for practical applications. The broad potential of this new interfacial Fc@CB[7] host-guest binding motif is manifested as nanoscale probes for the distribution of Fc terminal groups on SAMs, as an environmental regulator of long-range electron transfer process, and as a quantitative, competitive assay for pharmaceutical drugs. It is expected that this new interfacial host-guest binding system can be further explored for fabricating well-controlled, ratiometric electrochemical biosensors. 

Brief biography. Hua-Zhong “Hogan” Yu grew up in countryside China and completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Shandong University (Ji’nan, 1991) and Peking University (Beijing, 1997), respectively. He then went to California Institute of Technology worked with Ahmed Zewail (1999 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) and Fred Anson as a postdoctoral fellow. After short stays at National Research Council (Ottawa) and Acadia University (Wolfville), Dr. Yu joined Simon Fraser University in 2001 Dr. Yu was granted early promotion to full professor in 2009, and became an associate faculty of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in 2007. His research spans a broad range of topics in physical, analytical, and materials chemistry, with >150 research papers in refereed journals (mostly ACS, Wiley-VCH, and RSC), 14 National / International patents, and over 200 invited lectures worldwide. Dr. Yu has won several major awards, including the 2004 CSC  Fred Beamish Award, the W. Lash Miller Award of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Canadian Section in 2011, the Tajima Prize of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) in 2012, and the CSC W.A.E. McBryde Medal in 2015. Dr. Yu is currently an associate editor for Analyst, the flagship journal for analytical sciences published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).

Coffee and Timbits will be available