The Lin group works on a variety of interdisciplinary research projects ranging from catalysis to supramolecular materials and to nanobiotechnology. While addressing fundamental chemical problems, our research efforts are highly relevant to important societal issues such as environment and sustainability, catalysis; alternative renewable energy, biofuels and solar cells; and human health, nanobiotechnology and metallopharmaceuticals. Below is a brief description of each of our ongoing research projects.

Developing Catalytic Processes for Fine Chemicals and Biofuels
We have successfully designed new highly enantioselective catalysts for a variety of organic transformations. We are designing new catalytic systems for highly efficient conversion of cheap fatty acid feedstock (such as yellow and brown greases) to biodiesel. By taking advantage of our multidisciplinary expertise, we are not only discovering new homogeneous catalysts but also developing novel strategies for heterogenization of these practically important homogeneous catalysts.

Crystal Engineering of Functional Solid Materials
Our group was first to demonstrate the rational design of intrinsically polar solids for applications in second-order nonlinear optics. Based on a modular synthetic approach, we were able to predict and control the acentricity and chirality of solid state materials. We have also extended this successful approach to the rational synthesis of chiral metal-organic frameworks for enantioselective catalysis and separations and highly porous solids for hydrogen storage.

Chiral Supramolecular Chemistry
We have also developed synthetic strategies for nanoscopic and mesoscopic chiral molecular polygons and metallodendrimers. The unprecedentedly large molecular hula-hoops were readily assembled based on metal coordination-driven self-assembly processes. Such enzyme-mimicking chiral supra-molecular systems have been exploited in enantioselective recognition, sensing, separation, and catalysis.

Hybrid Nanomaterials for Biomedical Imaging and Drug Delivery
We are currently developing new hybrid nanomaterials for a number of biological and biomedical applications. Examples of our research efforts in this emerging area of nanobiotechnology range from using magnetic nanoparticles for protein purification, designing nanoscale multimodal imaging contrast agents (including magnetic resonance and optical imaging) for early diagnosis of cancers and rheumatoid arthritis, and targeted delivery of potent drugs for cancer therapy.

Biospecific Metallopharmaceuticals
We are also developing new bioconjugates containing well-designed multidentate ligands for the chelation of desirable metal isotopes. Such biospecific metallopharmaceuticals are potentially useful as diagnostic contrast agents for single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and as cancer therapeutics.