Title:   Photochemical Deracemization through Activated Triplet Energy Transfer

Time:    2025-11-20 10:30

Lecturer:  Jiali Gao

          Institute of Systems and Physical Biology, Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, China

          Department of Chemistry, University of Minnesota, USA

Venue:    Room 202, Lu-Jiaxi Building

Abstract：

Triplet excited-state energy transfer (TEET) provides a versatile activation mode in photocatalysis, enabling enantioselective [2+2] photocycloadditions, deracemizations, and conformational isomerizations by directing substrates onto triplet surfaces where bond reorganization is facile. In this work, I will present a computational study of the activation mechanism for TEET from a lower energy state of the catalyst to a higher energy triplet of the substrate. I will discuss the theory and computational procedure of multistate density functional theory developed in my group for studying chemical and biological photochemical processes.

Bio of the Lecturer：

Jiali Gao is a theoretical and computational biochemist. He has been an L. I. Smith Professor of Chemistry and the Director of Graduate Studies for the Scientific Computation graduate program at Minnesota. He is a recipient of the Diract Medal from WATOC, the Albert Hofmann Centennial Prize and an IBM Faculty Fellowship, and is the fellow of International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. Prof. Jiali Gao is credited for Making Important Contributions to the Development of Combined QM/MM Methods in the Chemistry Nobel Prize, 2013.

Prof. Jiali Gao completed B.sc. (1982) at Peking University and Ph.D. (1987) at Purdue University. Then he started his postdoctoral research at Harvard, and faculty positions at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Minnesota.

Prof. Jiali Gao focuses on the structure and properties of macromolecular systems. This includes the understanding of protein dynamics and enzyme catalysis. He is currently developing the quantum theory of density functionals, extending the Hohenberg and Kohn theorems for a single electronic state, the ground state, to all electronic states of the Schrodinger equation.