Math Into Code

Project developed in 2017 by Omar Palacios-Álvarez and Alfredo Tlahuice-Flores.

• [Oct, 2017]: First place in the statal event "V Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores del Estado de Nuevo León" in the category "Biology and Chemistry". A second note by the newspaper "El Porvenir" can be found here."
• [Nov, 2017]: Third place in the national event by CONACyT "IV Encuentro Interinstitucional de Jóvenes Investigadores" in the category "Biology and Chemistry".

Cisplatin is a well known anti-cancer drug and considered as essential by the World Health Organization. However, cisplatin features side effects during medical treatments due to its lack of selectivity resulting in the indiscriminate death of cells including healthy cells. To solve this issue, it is mandatory to improve its delivery towards affected organs or tissues. The well known bio-compatibility of gold clusters encouraged us to study the interaction between cisplatin molecules and the Au₁₈(SR)₁₄ cluster (named Au₁₈) and our DFT calculations have provided insight into this aspect. Calculated adsorption energy values of the cisplatin_n/Au₁₈ complexes are within the 0.5–3.6 eV range, which attests to their unique interaction. In addition, their calculated optical absorption (UV-vis) and circular dichroism (CD) spectra display distinct peaks in such a manner that UV/CD spectra can be used as fingerprints by experimentalists.