Abhik obtained a B.Sc. (Honours) in chemistry from
Jadavpur University,
Kolkata,
India, in 1987, winning the University Medal of the Faculty of Science. The same year, he moved to the
University of Minnesota, where he completed a PhD under the supervision of Regents' Professor
Paul G. Gassman (while also collaborating with Jan Almlöf) in 1992 and subsequently also postdoctoral research with
Lawrence Que Jr. During this period, Abhik reported some of the first high-quality
ab initio and
density functional theory calculations on bioinorganic systems, helping lay the foundation of the now thriving field of computational
bioinorganic chemistry. He did a brief, second postdoc with David Bocian at the
University of California Riverside, in the course of which he derived significant new insight into the problem diatomic ligand discrimination by heme proteins.[3]
Career
After postdoctoral stints in Minnesota and California, he moved to
UiT – The Arctic University of Norway in 1996, where he has remained ever since. He has had several secondary positions/affiliations: Senior Fellow of the
San Diego Supercomputer Center[4] at the University of California San Diego (1997–2004), Outstanding Younger Researcher awardee of the
Research Council of Norway (2004–2010), a co-principal investigator at the national center of excellence Centre for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (2007–2017), and a visiting professor at the
University of Auckland, New Zealand, on many occasions (2006–2016). He edited two books, The Smallest Biomolecules: Diatomics and their Interactions with Heme Proteins (Elsevier, 2008),[5] a monograph on the subject, and Letters to a Young Chemist (Wiley, 2011), a popular science book on careers in chemistry research.[6][7][8][9] In 2014, he coauthored Arrow Pushing in Inorganic Chemistry: A Logical Approach to the Chemistry of the Main Group Elements (Wiley) with Steffen Berg,[10] which won the 2015
Prose Award for 'best textbook in the Physical Sciences and Mathematics'.[11][12] He has served on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry (1999–2001, 2005–2007) and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines (2000–) and Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry (2007–present). He has authored/coauthored over 250 scientific papers, which have been cited over 12,000 times with an h-index of 64 (according to Google Scholar).[1][2] In 2022, he received the
Hans Fischer Career Award for lifetime contributions to porphyrin science. He is a member of several national and international academies including the European Academy of Sciences and the
Academia Europaea.
Research
Selected routes to 4d and 5d metallocorroles (ref 19).
Ghosh has contributed to many areas of
porphyrin-related research. His early contributions include the use of
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to study short-strong
hydrogen bonds in porphyrin-type molecules[13] and also some of the first large-scale
ab initio calculations applied to porphyrins[14] and other bioinorganic systems.[15] He has had an abiding interest in the phenomenon of
ligand noninnocence[16] and has contributed substantially to studying the phenomenon in transition metal
nitrosyl[17] and corrole[18][19][20] derivatives. In recent years, he has developed the field of heavy element corrole derivatives, which are unusual size-mismatched metal-ligand assemblies that incorporate a large 4d or 5d transition metal ion within the sterically compressed central cavity of a corrole.[21] In this area he has reported some of the first examples of
99Tc,[22]rhenium,[23][24]osmium,[25][26]platinum,[27][28] and
gold[29][30] corroles. Despite their size-mismatched character, many of these complexes have proved rugged and found applications as near-IR
phosphorescent photosensitizers in oxygen sensing[31][32] and
photodynamic therapy as well as in
dye-sensitized solar cells.[33][34] Ghosh's work on 4d and 5d elements has also led to new insights into
metal-metal bonds[35] (
quadruple bonds) and
relativistic effects.[36]
In 2017, Ghosh and coworkers reported the first example of a stable cis tautomer of a free-base porphyrin in the form of a termolecular hydrogen-bonded complex.[37] Subsequently, they found additional examples of porphyrin cis tautomers, proving that they can be reliably obtained from virtually any strongly saddled porphyrin co-crystallized with two molecules of a hydrogen donor (typically water or an alcohol).
Science communication and service
Cover of Arrow Pushing in Inorganic Chemistry; design by the authors.
^Flynn, Sarai; Harris, Markel; Montes, Luis D. (August 2012). "Review of Letters to a Young Chemist". Journal of Chemical Education. 89 (8). American Chemical Society: 973–974.
Bibcode:
2012JChEd..89..973F.
doi:
10.1021/ed3003397.
^Ghosh, Abhik; Moulder, John; Bröring, Martin; Vogel, Emanuel (2001). "X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy of Porphycenes: Charge Asymmetry Across Low-Barrier Hydrogen Bonds". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 40 (2): 431–434.
doi:
10.1002/1521-3773(20010119)40:2<431::aid-anie431>3.0.co;2-a.
ISSN1521-3773.
^Ghosh, Abhik (1 April 1998). "First-Principles Quantum Chemical Studies of Porphyrins". Accounts of Chemical Research. 31 (4): 189–198.
doi:
10.1021/ar950033x.
ISSN0001-4842.
^Ghosh, Abhik (1 September 2006). "Transition metal spin state energetics and noninnocent systems: challenges for DFT in the bioinorganic arena". Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry. 11 (6): 712–724.
doi:
10.1007/s00775-006-0135-4.
ISSN1432-1327.
PMID16841211.
S2CID22860795.
^Ghosh, Abhik (1 December 2005). "Metalloporphyrin−NO Bonding: Building Bridges with Organometallic Chemistry". Accounts of Chemical Research. 38 (12): 943–954.
doi:
10.1021/ar050121+.
ISSN0001-4842.
PMID16359166.
^Thomas, Kolle E.; Alemayehu, Abraham B.; Conradie, Jeanet; Beavers, Christine M.; Ghosh, Abhik (21 August 2012). "The Structural Chemistry of Metallocorroles: Combined X-ray Crystallography and Quantum Chemistry Studies Afford Unique Insights". Accounts of Chemical Research. 45 (8): 1203–1214.
doi:
10.1021/ar200292d.
ISSN0001-4842.
PMID22444488.
^Ghosh, Abhik (22 February 2017). "Electronic Structure of Corrole Derivatives: Insights from Molecular Structures, Spectroscopy, Electrochemistry, and Quantum Chemical Calculations". Chemical Reviews. 117 (4): 3798–3881.
doi:
10.1021/acs.chemrev.6b00590.
ISSN0009-2665.
PMID28191934.
^Ghosh, Abhik; Alemayehu, Abraham B.; Einrem, Rune F.; Borisov, Sergey M. (15 May 2019). "Ambient-temperature near-IR phosphorescence and potential applications of rhenium-oxo corroles". Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences. 18 (5): 1166–1170.
doi:
10.1039/C8PP00473K.
ISSN1474-9092.
PMID30801581.
^Alemayehu, Abraham B.; Day, Nicholas U.; Mani, Tomoyasu; Rudine, Alexander B.; Thomas, Kolle E.; Gederaas, Odrun A.; Vinogradov, Sergei A.; Wamser, Carl C.; Ghosh, Abhik (27 July 2016). "Gold Tris(carboxyphenyl)corroles as Multifunctional Materials: Room Temperature Near-IR Phosphorescence and Applications to Photodynamic Therapy and Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells". ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. 8 (29): 18935–18942.
doi:
10.1021/acsami.6b04269.
ISSN1944-8244.
PMID27414087.