Home Page @ Mount Saint Vincent University

Dr. Chérif F. Matta

------------------------------------------------

Associate Professor

Department of Chemistry and Physics

Mount Saint Vincent University

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3M 2J6

----------------------------------------------------------

Adjunct Professor

Department of Chemistry

Dalhousie University

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4J3.

----------------------------------------------------------

 

    RECENT VIDEO INTERVIEWS:

http://www.msvu.ca/Distance/Conversations.asp#Chemistry

 

o      RECENT BOOK:

C. F. Matta and R. J. Boyd (Eds.), "The Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules: From Solid State to DNA and Drug Design", Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2007.

Sample: Table of Contents, Preface, Chapter 1 (An Introduction to the Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules), and Alphabetical Index --> available (HERE)

o     NEW FORTHCOMING BOOK (2009)

LINKS: 

Professor John C. Polanyi (Surface Science)

Professor Russell J. Boyd (Computational Chemistry)

Professor Richard F. W. Bader (The quantum theory of atoms-in-molecules (QTAIM), topology of the molecular electron density)

Professor Lou Massa            (Quantum crystallography, quantum chemistry of very large biological moecules)

Professor Claude Lecomte (Crystallography: electron density studies, phase transitions, chemical bonding, instrumentation, magnetic molecular materials, molecular materials, zeolites, biomolecules and proteins)

Professor Jesús Hernández-Trujillo (QTAIM, theretical and quantum chemistry, computational chemistry)

The Computational Chemistry List (CCL)

 

RECENT CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA

 

 

 

Downloadable Sofware:  

 

Link (Coptic Orthodox Church):

http://Www.elmorkosia.net/

    Painting

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Book (February 2010):

C. F. Matta (Editor)

Quantum Biochemistry:

Electronic Structure and Biological Activity

(Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2010)

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

BOOK PRELIMINARIES

 

i.   Acknowledgment

ii.  Congratulations to Professor Ada Yonath for Winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

iii. Introductory Reflections on Quantum Biochemistry: From Context to Contents XI

Chérif F. Matta

iv. List of Contributors

 

VOLUME I

PART I: NOVEL THEORETICAL, COMPUTATIONAL,

AND EXPERIMENTAL METHODS AND TECHNIQUES

1 Quantum Kernels and Quantum Crystallography: Applications in Biochemistry

Lulu Huang, Lou Massa and Jerome Karle

2 Getting the Most out of ONIOM: Guidelines and Pitfalls

Fernando R. Clemente, Thom Vreven, and Michael J. Frisch

3 Modeling Enzymatic Reactions in Metalloenzymes and Photobiology by Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics (QM/MM) Calculations

Lung Wa Chung, Xin Li, and Keiji Morokuma

4 From Molecular Electrostatic Potentials to Solvation Models and Ending with Biomolecular Photophysical Processes

Jacopo Tomasi, Chiara Cappelli, Benedetta Mennucci, and Roberto Cammi

5 The Fast Marching Method for Determining Chemical Reaction Mechanisms in Complex Systems

Yuli Liu, Steven K. Burger, Bijoy K. Dey, Utpal Sarkar, Marek R. Janicki, and Paul W. Ayers

 

PART TWO: NUCLEIC ACIDS, AMINO ACIDS, PEPTIDES AND THEIR INTERACTIONS

6 Chemical Origin of Life: How do Five HCN Molecules Combine to form Adenine under Prebiotic and Interstellar Conditions

Debjani Roy and Paul von Ragué Schleyer

7 Hydrogen Bonding and Proton Transfer in ionized DNA Base Pairs, Amino Acids and Peptides

Luis Rodríguez-Santiago, Marc Noguera, Joan Bertran, and Mariona Sodupe

8 To Nano-Biochemistry: Picture of the Interactions of DNA with Gold

Eugene S. Kryachko

9 Quantum Mechanical Studies of Noncovalent DNA–Protein Interactions

Lesley R. Rutledge and Stacey D. Wetmore

10 The Virial Field and Transferability in DNA Base-Pairing

Richard F.W. Bader and Fernando Cortés-Guzmán

11 An Electron Density-Based Approach to the Origin of Stacking Interactions

Ricardo A. Mosquera, María J. González Moa, Laura Estévez, Marcos Mandado, and Ana M. Graña

12 Polarizabilities of Amino Acids: Additive Models and Ab Initio Calculations

Noureddin El-Bakali Kassimi and Ajit J. Thakkar

13 Methods in Biocomputational Chemistry: A Lesson from the Amino Acids

Hugo J. Bohórquez, Constanza Cárdenas, Chérif F. Matta, Russell J. Boyd, and Manuel E. Patarroyo

14 From Atoms in Amino Acids to the Genetic Code and Protein Stability, and Backwards

Chérif F. Matta

15 Energy Richness of ATP in Terms of Atomic Energies: A First Step

Chérif F. Matta and Alya A. Arabi

 

VOLUME II

Part Three: Reactivity, Enzyme Catalysis, Biochemical Reaction Paths and Mechanisms

16 Quantum Transition State for Peptide Bond Formation in the Ribosome

Lou Massa, Chérif F. Matta, Ada Yonath and Jerome Karle

17 Hybrid QM/MM Simulations of Enzyme-Catalyzed DNA Repair Reactions

Denis Bucher, Fanny Masson, J. Samuel Arey and Ursula Röthlisberger

18 Computational Electronic Structure of Spin-Coupled Diiron-Oxo Proteins

Jorge H. Rodriguez

19 Accurate Description of Spin States and its Implications for Catalysis

Marcel Swart, Mireia Güell and Miquel Solà

20 Quantum Mechanical Approaches to Selenium Biochemistry

Jason K. Pearson and Russell J. Boyd

21 Catalytic Mechanism of Metallo b-Lactamases: Insights from Calculations and Experiments

Matteo Dal Peraro, Alejandro J. Vila and Paolo Carloni

22 Computational Simulation of the Terminal Biogenesis of Sesquiterpenes: The Case of 8-Epiconfertin

José Enrique Barquera-Lozada and Gabriel Cuevas

23 Mechanistics of Enzyme Catalysis: From Small to Large Active-Site Models

Jorge Llano and James W. Gauld

 

Part Four: From Quantum Biochemistry to Quantum Pharmacology,

Therapeutics, and Drug Design

24 Developing Quantum Topological Molecular Similarity (QTMS)

Paul L.A. Popelier

25 Quantum-Chemical Descriptors in QSAR/QSPR Modeling: Achievements, Perspectives and Trends

Anna V. Gubskaya

26 Platinum Complexes as Anti-Cancer Drugs: Modeling of Structure, Activation and Function

Konstantinos Gkionis, Mark Hicks, Arturo Robertazzi and J. Grant Hill, and James A. Platts

27 Protein Misfolding: The Quantum Biochemical Search for a Solution to Alzheimer’s Disease

Donald F. Weaver

28 Targeting Butyrylcholinesterase for Alzheimer’s Disease Therapy

Katherine V. Darvesh, Ian R. Pottie, Robert S. McDonald, Earl Martin, and Sultan Darvesh

29 Reduction Potentials of Peptide-Bound Copper (II) – Relevance for Alzheimer’s Disease and Prion Diseases

Arvi Rauk

30 Theoretical Investigation of NSAID Photodegradation Mechanisms

Klefah A.K. Musa and Leif A. Eriksson

 

Part Five: Biochemical Signature of Quantum Indeterminism

31 Quantum Indeterminism, Mutation, Natural Selection, and the Meaning of Life

David N. Stamos

32 Molecular Orbitals: Dispositions or Predictive Structures?

Jean-Pierre Llored and Michel Bitbol

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOME FAVOURITE QUOTES:

"THE HISTORY of acceptance of new theories frequently shows the following steps: At first the new idea is treated as pure nonsense, not worth looking at. Then comes a time when a multitude of contradictory objections are raised, such as: the new theory is too fancy, or merely a new terminology; it is not fruitful, or simply wrong. Finally a state is reached when everyone seems to claim that he had always followed this theory. This usually marks the last state before general acceptance."

Kurt Lewin (1966): in "Some Theories of Organization.", A. H. Rubenstein and C. J. Haberstroh (Eds.), Richard D. Irwin, Inc. and the Dorsey Press, Homewood, Illinois: 1966.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"... it is in virtue of the form that the matter is some one definite thing, and this is the substance of the thing. What Aristotle means seems to be plain common sense: a "thing" must be bounded, and the boundary constitutes its form. ... We should not naturally say that it is the form that confers substantiality, but that is because the atomic hypothesis is ingrained in our imagination. Each atom, however, if it is a "thing", is so in virtue of its being delimited from other atoms, and so having, in some sense, a "form".

Bertrand Russell (1945) "A History of Western Philosophy"; Simon and Schuster: New York, 1945.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Life may be defined operationally as an information processing system - a structural hierarchy of functioning units - that has acquired through evolution the ability to store and process the information necessary for its own accurate reproduction. The key word in the definition is information."

Lila Gatlin (1972) "Information Theory and the Living System", Columbia University Press, New York.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

"There is no such thing as a private intellectual, since the moment you set down words and then publish them you have entered the public world. Nor is there only a public intellectual, someone who exists just as a figurehead or spokesperson or symbol of a cause, movement, or position. There is always the personal inflection and the private sensibility, and those give meaning to what is being said or written. Least of all should an intellectual be there to make his/her audiences feel good: the whole point is to be embarrassing, contrary, even unpleasant."

Edward W. Said (1994), "Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures", Pantheon Books, New York.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

"En résumé, la seule réalité objective, se sont les rapports des choses d'où résulte l'harmonie universelle. Sans doute ces rapports, cette harmonie ne sauraient être conçus en dehors d'un esprit qui les conçoit ou qui les sents. Mais ils sont néanmoins objectifs parce qu'ils sont, deviendront, ou resteront communs á tous les êtres pensants."

" Et cependant - étrange contradiction pour ceux qui croient au temps - l'histoire géologique nous montre que la vie n'est qu'un court épisode entre deux éternités de mort, et que, dans cet épisode même, la pensée consciente n'a duré et ne durera qu'un moment. La pensée n'est qu'un éclair au milieu d'une longue nuit.

Mais c'est cet éclair qui est tout"

Henri Poincaré (1927), "La Valeur de la Science"; Ernest Flammarion, Paris.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

"J'entends par Réalité, tout d'abord, ce qui résiste à nos expériences, représentations, descriptions, images ou formalisations mathématiques. La physique quantique nous a fait découvrir que l'abstractions n'est pas un simple intermédiaire entre nous et la Nature, un outil pour décrire la réalité, mais une des parties constitutives de la Nature. Dans la physique quantique, le formalisme mathématique est inseparable de l'expérience. Il résiste, à sa manière, à la fois pas son souci d'autoconsistance interne et son besoin d'intégrer les données expérimentales sans détruire cette autoconsistance."

Basarab Nicolescu (1996), "LA TRANSDISCIPLINARITÉ: Manifeste"; Éditions du Rocher, Paris.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Since 1 September 2005, you are visitor #

© Chérif F. Matta, 2002-2009