Organometallics 2010, 29, 6145–6145 DOI: 10.1021/om101019x
6145
Introduction to the Review by Wright, Turrell, and Pickett in This Issue of Organometallics, and a Tip-of-the-Hat to Arnold (Arnie) Rheingold Three phylogenetically distinct hydrogenase enzymes have been discovered to date, each with a unique metal-based active site. The nickel-iron (NiFe) and iron-iron (FeFe) hydrogenases reversibly catalyze the reduction of protons to dihydrogen, and this deceptively simple transformation is of increasing importance for its relevance to hydrogen fuel cells and solar cells for dihydrogen production. The monoiron or [Fe]-hydrogenase catalyzes, in nature, the reversible heterolytic cleavage of dihydrogen, thereby providing a hydride source for a cationic methanopterin. Accordingly, researchers have sought structural and functional models of hydrogenase active sites. In their Review, Professor Christopher (Chris) J. Pickett and his coauthors Dr. Joseph Wright and Mr. Peter Turrell provide an indepth treatment of the [Fe]-hydrogenase. They successively describe the isolation and structural elucidation of the enzyme and iron cofactor, the development of synthetic models, and the current state of mechanistic insight. These efforts represent both cutting-edge bioorganometallic chemistry and first-class interdisciplinary science and should be of broad interest to the readership of this journal.
Credit: Tim Boote left to right: Joseph Wright, Chris Pickett, Peter Turrell
Chris Pickett obtained his Ph.D. under the guidance of Derek Pletcher at Southampton University in 1975. His doctoral research focused on the electrochemistry of metal carbonyls and included the identification of the 17-valence-electron binary carbonyl cation [Cr(CO)6]þ. He then joined Professor Joseph Chatt’s Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory at the University of
r 2010 American Chemical Society
Sussex, where his endeavors led to the discovery of a route for the electrosynthesis of ammonia (Nature 1985, 317, 652). For this, and his work on electrochemical transformation of ligands, he was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Medal for Transition Metal Chemistry in 1993. The Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory moved to the John Innes Centre in Norwich in 1995, where in 2000 he became Associate Head of the Department of Biological Chemistry. In 2005, he assumed a Chair in Chemistry at the University of East Anglia, where he is now Director of the Energy Materials Laboratory. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious Ludwig Mond medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry for his electrochemical, synthetic, and mechanistic studies of the chemistry of key metalloenzymes, the nitrogenases, and more recently the hydrogenases. This last work included the synthesis of the framework of the H cluster of the [FeFe]-hydrogenase (Nature 2005, 434, 610). He is a founding director of Chameleon Biosurfaces Ltd., which was set up in 2002 to develop electropolymer materials for biomedical and other applications. Joseph Wright is a senior research associate who completed his Ph.D. with the late Jonathan Spencer at the University of Cambridge. After postdoctoral positions with Andreas Danopoulos (University of Southampton) and Associate Editor Manfred Bochmann (University of East Anglia), he joined Chris Pickett’s group in 2008. His research focus is mechanistic and structural studies of inorganic and bioinorganic systems. Peter Turrell is a doctoral student who is currently researching synthetic analogues of the inorganic cofactor of Hmd in the Pickett group. Following the tradition of my predecessor, Dietmar Seyferth, I would like to thank Professor Arnold (Arnie) L. Rheingold for the cover illustration. I would also like, on behalf of all Editors and Authors, to express our collective appreciation for the 46 different covers that he has generated over the past 20 years. Given the change to author-supplied cover graphics in 2011 (Organometallics 2010, 29, 4417), this issue marks the last in the “Rheingold series”. Although it is with some sadness that this era comes to an end, Arnie’s legacy will live on in the cover art gallery that can be found on the journal Web site (http://pubs.acs.org/action/showCoverGallery? journalCode=orgnd7).
John A. Gladysz Editor in Chief
Published on Web 12/06/2010
pubs.acs.org/Organometallics
