Professor Teresa Head-Gordon along with other researchers from UC Berkeley and Ruhr-University Bochum have investigated why cages can increase the catalytic activity of enclosed molecules. Using terahertz spectroscopy and complex computer simulations, they showed that water encapsulated in a tiny cage has special properties – that are structurally and dynamically distinct from any known phase of water. The water forms a droplet inside the cage that facilitates the encapsulation of a host molecule, i.e. to access the catalytic centre.
Read more about it here.
