Nature uses triggered structural changes to catalyze kinetically and thermodynamically challenging reactions.
O-lab reserach aims to mimic this mechanistic paradigm and then apply it to solve real world problems.
Biological systems have nearly universally evolved to employ triggered structural changes to control and maintain efficiency in the transport of protons and electrons.
We do not think this is a coincidence. But proving that in these multi-subunit, membrane-bound proteins is extremely challenging as it is often impossible to decouple conformational changes from catalysis.
As such, we are preparing simplified synthetic and artificial systems with which to explore and exploit the link between molecular structural control and electronic structural control.