Date of Graduation

Fall 2026

Degree

Master of Science in Chemistry

Department

Chemistry & Biochemistry

Committee Chair

Nikolay N. Gerasimchuk

Abstract

Bacterial infections pose a serious threat to humans by developing resistance, rendering antibiotics ineffective. Of the 12 antibiotics recently approved since 2017, 10 belong to an already existing class. Various resistance mechanisms, such as reduced drug uptake, active efflux, drug inactivation, and target modification, can significantly reduce the efficacy of entire classes of antibiotics. Discovering novel strategies to overcome diverse mechanisms of resistance and improve therapeutic efficacy is in high demand. Inorganic compounds with organic ligands (both complexes and organometallics) represent a new class of compounds against which antimicrobial resistance has not yet been established. Recently, we discovered two series of new antimicrobial organoantimony compounds containing biologically active cyanoximes. Previously synthesized and characterized tetraphenyl and trimethyl organoantimony(V) cyanoximates have shown bacterial membrane-disruptive capabilities, allowing enhanced antibiotic uptake and more effective bacterial killing. This project aims to synthesize and characterize a series of triphenyl organoantimony(V) cyanoximates, which we call the G3 family, to enhance membrane-disrupting activity. We hypothesize that different biologically active cyanoximes linked to metalloid ligands will alter the electron density and bulk around the antimony center. Thus, novel organoantimony cyanoximates of the SbPh3L2 composition were crystallized and characterized by 13C{1H} nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy (IR), and single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SC-XRD). Thermal gravimetric analysis (TG/DSC) was performed to assess the stability of new compounds at ambient conditions. Overall, these findings establish a solid-state chemical foundation for developing this new family of compounds into promising alternatives for treating drug-resistant infections.

Keywords

chemical synthesis, organoantimony(V) compounds, cyanoximes, X-ray analysis, NMR spectroscopy, thermal analysis.

Subject Categories

Inorganic Chemistry

Copyright

© Thao Trang Phan

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