Jordi Poater

Jordi Poater

Universitat de Barcelona

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Born in 1977. I got my PhD in Chemistry in 2003 at the Universitat de Girona (UdG) with a thesis on the analysis of chemical bonding and aromaticity of organic systems with tools based on the electron-pair density. Next I moved to the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA), with a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship, where I carried out research on the DNA replication mechanism by means of Kohn-Sham molecular orbital theory complemented with quantitative bond energy decomposition analyses. In 2008 I was awarded with a Ramón y Cajal tenure-track position at the Institute of Computational Chemistry and Catalysis of the UdG. Afterwards I was appointed Senior Associate Researcher at the Department of Theoretical Chemistry and Amsterdam Center for Multiscale Modeling of the VUA. I have published 150 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, which have received more than 5.700 citations. My H-Index is 39, and I appear as “Scientist” at the Essential Science Indicators.


Research interests

My research takes off from two main lines, which are interconnected and reinforce each other. First, the study of aromaticity in organic and metal systems, with tools derived from the electron-pair density, with the purpose of analyzing the electronic structure and molecular bonding in a wide range of molecular systems. Afterwards, I have become an expert in the application of Kohn-Sham molecular orbital theory complemented with quantitative bond energy decomposition analyses to biological issues. In particular, the study of the DNA replication mechanism has become my main research line. I have got closer to experiment by studying the selectivity in DNA replication mechanism taking into study the steric shape, hydrogen bonds, pi-stacking and solvent effects in DNA bases.

Selected publications

- Tu, Deshuang; Yan, Hong; Poater, Jordi; Solà, Miquel 2020, 'The nido-Cage...pi Bond: A Non-covalent Interaction between Boron Clusters and Aromatic Rings and Its Applications', Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 59, 23, 9018 - 9025.

- J. Jian, J Poater, P. B. White, C. J. McKenzie, F. M. Bickelhaupt, J. Mecinović 2020, “Probing Halogen-pi versus CH-pi Interactions in Molecular Balance”, Org. Lett. 20, 7870-7873.

- Narsaria, Ayush K; Poater, Jordi; Fonseca Guerra, Celia; Ehlers, Andreas W; Hamlin, Trevor A; Lammertsma, Koop; Bickelhaupt, F Matthias 2020, 'Distortion-Controlled Redshift of Organic Dye Molecules.', Chem. Eur. J. 26, 9, 2080 - 2093.

- Pieters, Bas J. G. E.; Wuts, Maud H. M.; Poater, Jordi; Kumar, Kiran; White, Paul B.; Kamps, Jos J. A. G.; Sherman, Woody; Pruijn, Ger J. M.; Paton, Robert S.; Beuming, Thijs; Bickelhaupt, F. Matthias; Mecinovic, Jasmin 2020, 'Mechanism of biomolecular recognition of trimethyllysine by the fluorinated aromatic cage of KDM5A PHD3 finger', Comm. Chem., 3, 1, 69.

- Savoo, Nandini; Laloo, Jalal Z. A.; Rhyman, Lydia; Ramasami, Ponnadurai; Bickelhaupt, F. Matthias; Poater, Jordi 2020, 'Activation Strain Analyses of Counterion and Solvent Effects on the Ion-Pair S(N)2 Reaction of NH2-and CH3Cl', J. Comput. Chem., 41, 317-327.

- Hintzen, Jordi C. J.; Poater, Jordi; Kumar, Kiran; Al Temimi, Abbas H. K.; Pieters, Bas J. G. E.; Paton, Robert S.; Bickelhaupt, F. Matthias; Mecinovic, Jasmin 2020, 'Comparison of Molecular Recognition of Trimethyllysine and Trimethylthialysine by Epigenetic Reader Proteins', Molecules, 25, 8, 1918.


Selected research activities

- PI of MINECO research grant (2020-2023).

- Co-PI (garante) of María de Maeztu Grant to IQTCUB (2M€, 2018-2022).

- Front Cover in Journal of the American Chemical Society and featured on Spotlights on recent JACS publications.

- Front Cover in ChemPhysChem.

- Member of 3 PhD commitees.

- Supervised 2 TFG undergraduate.