Interweaving Disciplines to Advance Chemistry: Applying Polyoxometalates in Biology

Abstract

This Viewpoint brings awareness of the challenges and subsequent breakthroughs at the intersection of different disciplines, illustrated by the example of the influence biological entities exerted on a huge class of inorganic coordination compounds, called polyoxometalates (POMs). We highlight the possible effects of biological systems on POMs that need to be considered, thereby emphasizing the depth and complexity of interdisciplinary work. We map POMs’ structural, electrochemical, and stability properties in the presence of biomolecules and stress the potential challenges related to inorganic coordination chemistry carried out in biological systems. This Viewpoint shows that new chemistry is available at the intersections between disciplines and aims to guide the community toward a discussion about current as well as future trends in truly interdisciplinary work.

Defect {(WVIO7)WVI4} and Full {(WVIO7)WVI5} Pentagonal Units as Synthons for the Generation of Nanosized Main Group V Heteropolyoxotungstates

“…These features make them attractive materials in a wide range of fields, like catalysis, 2 electrochemistry, 3 magnetochemistry, 4 and biological chemistry 5 including protein crystallography, 6 and the subject of challenging interdisciplinary research. 7 In polyoxotungstate (POT) chemistry, architectural control can be achieved at the fragment level by carefully selecting the heteroanion template. Among the variety of primary heteroatoms grafted into heteropolyoxotungstates, main group V and VI representatives such as As III , Sb III , Bi III , Se IV , and Te IV are of synthetic interest as their lone pair prevents the formation of a closed Keggin {XW 12 O 40 } sphere resulting in a structure-directing effect of the heteroanion.…”

Vanadium and Melanoma: A Systematic Review

“…Only a few pre-clinical models of cancer have been carried out with vanadium so far [27], although much work has been carried out with vanadium compounds, suggesting a potential therapeutic opportunity. Such studies are demanding and require interdisciplinary teams to develop new vanadium materials and/or complexes [86], and to select which vanadium is suited for further development against a particular disease. In the present decade, we expect that important questions will be answered, in order to push forward the practice of metals compounds-particularly, vanadium-for the treatment of cancer.…”

Looking for Options to Sustainably Fixate Nitrogen. Are Molecular Metal Oxides Catalysts a Viable Avenue?

“…POMs are polynuclear metal oxide anions that are molecular analogues of solid-state metal oxides. Diverse fields such as, water oxidation catalysts ( Blasco-Ahicart et al, 2018 ), photocatalysis ( Costa-Coquelard et al, 2010 ), molecular electronics ( Busche et al, 2014 ), quantum computation ( Gaita-Ariño et al, 2019 ), biology ( Gumerova and Rompel, 2021 ) and medicinal science ( Lu et al, 2021 ) have all been impacted by POM chemistry. Current findings demonstrate the feasibility of hydrogen-production using silicotungstic acid, H 6 [SiW 12 O 4 ], by coupling low-pressure oxygen production via water oxidation linked to non-electrolyzer catalytic hydrogen production ( Rausch et al, 2014 ).…”