Control and Manipulation of Electron Spin in Technology and Biochemistry

22 European countries with at least 100 scientists jointly work together in the newly established EU project “CM1305 Explicit Control Over Spin- states in Technology and Biochemistry (ECOSTBio)”.

Scientists from all over Europe collaborate on control and manipulation of electron spin in technology and biochemistry. Between 2014 and 2018, a new database called SPINSTATE will be created that assembles the current state-of-knowledge in this area of research and will make it available to scientists from all over the world. Electron spin, its control and the dynamics of different spin states were not sufficiently investigated and applied until now. Possible areas of application range from enzymatic catalysis, new electronic storage media and magnets to novel chemical processes and improved product control. Dr. Matthias Stein from the Max Planck Institute in Magdeburg is Germany's representative in the Management Commitee (MC) and Working Group (WG) Leader of the WG 'Enzymatic Spin States' in this EU project.

"It is our aim to rationalize how Nature manages to control and steer such complicated biochemical processes. We want to transfer our results to design new compounds in lab experiments. This EU project allows us to collaborate from Magdeburg with top scientists from Europe, to exchange ideas with scientists and thus push research forward", Matthias Stein explains the prospects of this collaborative initiative.