Name	Dr. JASON SHEARER
e-mail	jsheare1@jhu.edu
education	Ph.D.: Inorganic Chemistry, University of Washington, 2001 Advisor: Prof. Julie A. Kovacs Thesis: Synthetic Models for Metalloenzymes Containing Sulfur-Metal Bonds B.S.: Biochemistry and Cell and Molecular Biology (Double Major), University of Maryland, College Park, 1998
Research	Metalloenzymes that utilize copper ions to bind and activate dioxygen perform a variety of biologically important functions such as dioxygen transport, substrate oxidations, and the hydroxylation of hydrocabons. Activation and functionalization of aliphatic C-H bonds is both a biologically and industrially important process, yet the mechanism by which copper-enzymes perform these oxidations is poorly understood. To gain a better understanding of how nature performs these reactions we have prepared a series of tridentate Cu(I) complexes which readily bind and activate dioxygen, forming the corresponding CuII2-(peroxo) species. These CuII2-(peroxo) readily oxidize a wide variety of interesting and novel substrates (THF, N,N-dimethylanilines, alcohols, and thioethers). We are currently investigating the mechanism by which these oxidations occur through a combination of detailed kinetic studies and the use of mechanistic probes.

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