Dr. Banglin Chen - Current research interest includes solid state nanoporous metal-organic frameworks and nanoparticles, self-assembled by coordination of suitable metal ions/clusters with organic building blocks. Such porous materials are of great interest for their potential applications in gas storage, separations, sensors, catalysis and electronics. The current challenge for the synthesis of such materials is to functionalize their nano-sized cavities; so that they can be well suited for specific host-guest interactions and practical applications. Our goals here are to develop synthetic approaches to address the challenge by the emerging crystal design and pre-constructed building blocks strategies. The synthesized materials will be structurally characterized, examined and rationalized for above mentioned functional properties.