About

Eunsuk Kim is a Professor of Chemistry at Brown University, specializing in bioinorganic chemistry, coordination chemistry, redox signaling, nitric oxide signaling, energy, and carbon dioxide conversion. His research aims to develop fundamental inorganic chemistry solutions to address challenging biological and environmental problems. The Kim lab employs a multidisciplinary approach, drawing from synthetic inorganic chemistry, spectroscopy, biochemistry, and toxicology to advance understanding in these areas. He earned his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 2004, and holds a M.S. and B.S. in Chemistry from Korean University and Sangmyung University, respectively. His work has contributed to the understanding of unusual synthetic pathways for iron complexes, nitric oxide reactivity, and the transformation of metal complexes relevant to biological processes. His research continues to focus on developing inorganic chemistry methods to explore and solve complex biological and environmental issues.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Combinatorial chemistry
• Chemistry
• Database

Selected publications

• LeuO fine-tunes the virulence attributable to <i>Salmonella</i> pathogenicity island-2 via repressing <i>ssrA</i> transcription in <i>Salmonella</i> Typhimurium

  Virulence · 2026-02-06

  articleOpen access1st author

  during systemic infection.

  PublisherDOI

• Nitrate and Perchlorate Reduction by a Dinuclear Mo(V) Complex

  Inorganic Chemistry · 2025-08-29 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Nitrate (NO3–) and perchlorate (ClO4–) are persistent groundwater contaminants due to their high stability and solubility. Microorganisms reduce these anions using molybdenum-containing enzymes such as nitrate reductases and perchlorate reductases. Reported here is a bioinspired dinuclear Mo(V) catalyst, [Mo2O3(LBr)2(THF)2] (2), where LBr = 5-Bromo-2-hydroxybenzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone, and its reactivity with nitrate and perchlorate. Compound 2 was previously speculated to be an inactive byproduct formed when its monomeric Mo(VI) analog, [MoVIO2(LBr)(MeOH)] (1), catalyzes an oxygen atom transfer (OAT) between dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and PPh3. This work reports the synthesis, spectroscopic and crystallographic characterizations, and catalytic reactivity of 2. Contrary to earlier expectations, 2 catalyzes OAT from DMSO to PPh3, and also reduces nitrate and perchlorate, making it one of the few homogeneous molybdenum catalysts known to do so. With nitrate, 2 performs two OAT steps per NO3– to generate 1 and N2O, likely via nitrite and nitroxy intermediates. With perchlorate, 2 catalyzes four OAT events per ClO4–, yielding Cl– and 1. The effect of Sc3+ as a cocatalyst was also investigated; it significantly enhances the rates for perchlorate reduction but has minimal impact on nitrate reduction.

  PublisherDOI

• pH-Controlled enzymatic computing for digital circuits and neural networks

  Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access

  , akin to the switching action of electronic switches in digital circuits. The binary signals (0 and 1) are encoded as different concentrations of strong acids or bases, offering a bio-inspired method for computation. The final readout is done using UV-vis spectroscopy after applying detection reactions to indicate whether the output is 1 (indicated by the presence of the enzymatic reaction's product) or 0 (indicated by the absence of the enzymatic reaction's product). We build and evaluate a set of digital circuits in the lab using our proposed methodology to model the circuits using chemical reactions. In addition, we demonstrate the implementation of a neural network classifier using our framework.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Effects of Teaching Personality and Counseling Self-Efficacy on Inclusive Education Competence of Child Care Teachers for Handicapped Infants and Toddlers

  Korea Association Of Child-centered Practice · 2024-06-30

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the teaching personality and counseling self-effi-cacy on inclusive education competence of child care teachers for handicapped infants and Toddlers. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted among 249 childcare teachers of infants and toddlers with disabilities working in integrated child care centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. For the collected data, frequency analysis, Cronbach's α coefficient calculation, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were conducted according to research problems using the SPSS 29.0 program. The main research results are as follows. First, the teaching personality, counseling self-efficacy, and ability to conduct integrated education of childcare teachers with disabilities were all above the median value. Second, as a result of analyzing the correlation between the teaching personality, counseling self-efficacy, and ability to perform integrated education of childcare teachers with disabilities, significant positive (+) correlations were found between the teaching personality, counseling self-efficacy, overall ability to perform integrated education, and each sub-variable. Third, the teaching personality and coun-seling self-efficacy of childcare teachers with disabilities positively affect the ability to perform integrated education, and among the teaching personality of infants with disabilities, the sense of vocation, passion for students, educational belief, and counseling self-efficacy were found to have a significant influence on the ability to perform integrated education. This study suggests the importance of developing the teaching personality and self-efficacy of childcare teachers of infants and toddlers with disabilities in order to improve their ability to provide integrated education. Based on the results of this study, it is expected that a systematic teacher training program will be developed to support the performance of integrated education for childcare teachers for infants and young children with disabilities.

  PublisherDOI

• The Use of Digital Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder—A Meta-Analysis

  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · 2024-09-26 · 17 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Celebrating Kenneth D. Karlin for his ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry

  Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry · 2023-01-21

  editorial
  PublisherDOI

• Digital circuits and neural networks based on acid-base chemistry implemented by robotic fluid handling

  Nature Communications · 2023-01-30 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Acid-base reactions are ubiquitous, easy to prepare, and execute without sophisticated equipment. Acids and bases are also inherently complementary and naturally map to a universal representation of "0" and "1." Here, we propose how to leverage acids, bases, and their reactions to encode binary information and perform information processing based upon the majority and negation operations. These operations form a functionally complete set that we use to implement more complex computations such as digital circuits and neural networks. We present the building blocks needed to build complete digital circuits using acids and bases for dual-rail encoding data values as complementary pairs, including a set of primitive logic functions that are widely applicable to molecular computation. We demonstrate how to implement neural network classifiers and some classes of digital circuits with acid-base reactions orchestrated by a robotic fluid handling device. We validate the neural network experimentally on a number of images with different formats, resulting in a perfect match to the in-silico classifier. Additionally, the simulation of our acid-base classifier matches the results of the in-silico classifier with approximately 99% similarity.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry – Karlin Special Issue

  Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry · 2023-01-21 · 2 citations

  editorial
  PublisherDOI

• Dioxygen reactivity of a biomimetic [4Fe-4S] compound exhibits [4Fe-4S] to [2Fe-2S] cluster conversion

  Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry · 2022-01-06 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Evaluation of Salmonella Typhimurium Lacking fruR, ssrAB, or hfq as a Prophylactic Vaccine against Salmonella Lethal Infection

  Vaccines · 2022-08-28 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access

  Non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) is one of the primary causes of foodborne gastroenteritis; occasionally, it causes invasive infection in humans. Because of its broad host range, covering diverse livestock species, foods of animal origin pose a critical threat of NTS contamination. However, there is currently no licensed vaccine against NTS infection. FruR, also known as Cra (catabolite repressor/activator), was initially identified as the transcriptional repressor of the fructose (fru) operon, and then found to activate or repress the transcription of many different genes associated with carbon and energy metabolism. In view of its role as a global regulator, we constructed a live attenuated vaccine candidate, ΔfruR, and evaluated its prophylactic effect against NTS infection in mice. A Salmonella Typhimurium mutant strain lacking fruR was defective in survival inside macrophages and exhibited attenuated virulence in infected mice. Immunization with the ΔfruR mutant stimulated the production of antibodies, including the IgG, IgM, and IgG subclasses, and afforded a protection of 100% to mice against the challenge of lethal infection with a virulent Salmonella strain. The prophylactic effect obtained after ΔfruR immunization was also validated by the absence of signs of hepatosplenomegaly, as these mice had comparable liver and spleen weights in comparison with healthy mice. These results suggest that the ΔfruR mutant strain can be further exploited as a promising vaccine candidate against Salmonella lethal infection.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Chemistry of Iron-sulfur clusters in redox signaling

  NSF · $466k · 2018–2022

• CAREER: Chemistry of Iron-Sulfur Clusters in Nitric Oxide Signaling

  NSF · $550k · 2013–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Kenneth D. Karlin

  Johns Hopkins University

  84 shared

• Andreas D. Zuberbühler

  University of Basel

  75 shared

• Susan Kaderli

  62 shared

• Arnold L. Rheingold

  University of California, San Diego

  62 shared

• Pierre Moënne‐Loccoz

  Oregon Health & Science University

  58 shared

• Matthew E. Helton

  54 shared

• Kady Oakley

  Providence College

  46 shared

• Christopher D. Incarvito

  45 shared