Alexander M. Spokoyny

About

Dr. Alexander M. Spokoyny is a faculty member at UCLA, where he has been a professor since 2014. His research program encompasses an interdisciplinary approach focusing on pressing problems in chemistry, biology, medicine, and materials science. He explores fundamentally new synthetic avenues, structural understanding, and applications for inorganic and organomimetic clusters. His work involves the development of an extensive and versatile synthetic toolbox, allowing for the functionalization of various polyhedral borane and carborane 3D cluster motifs. Specifically, he focuses on creating new ligand platforms with unique electronic and steric features, stable inorganic radicals, and multifunctional, atomically precise nanosized molecules. These efforts aim to reveal novel solutions to important problems in science and technology, including new reaction development, energy storage, and biomolecular recognition and labeling.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Organic chemistry
• Composite material
• Chemical engineering
• Materials science
• Combinatorial chemistry
• Optoelectronics
• Chemical physics

Selected publications

• Tunable Dopants with Intrinsic Counterion Separation Reveal the Effects of Electron Affinity on Dopant Intercalation and Free Carrier Production in Sequentially Doped Conjugated Polymer Films

  Advanced Functional Materials · 2020 · 103 citations

  Carrier mobility in doped conjugated polymers is limited by Coulomb interactions with dopant counterions. This complicates studying the effect of the dopant's oxidation potential on carrier generation because different dopants have different Coulomb interactions with polarons on the polymer backbone. Here, dodecaborane (DDB)-based dopants are used, which electrostatically shield counterions from carriers and have tunable redox potentials at constant size and shape. DDB dopants produce mobile car…

  DOI

• Oxidative Generation of Boron-Centered Radicals in Carboranes

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2020-02-19 · 76 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  We report the first indirect observation and use of boron vertex-centered carboranyl radicals generated by the oxidation of modified carboranyl precursors. These radical intermediates are formed by the direct oxidation of a B–B bond between a boron cluster cage and an exopolyhedral boron-based substituent (e.g., −BF3K, −B(OH)2). The in situ generated radical species are shown to be competent substrates in reactions with oxygen-based radicals, dichalcogenides, and N-heterocycles, yielding the cor…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 33 Unresolved Questions in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

  ACS Nano · 2025-09-04 · 22 citations

  articleOpen access

  Significant advances in science and engineering often emerge at the intersections of disciplines. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are inherently interdisciplinary, uniting researchers from chemistry, physics, biology, medicine, materials science, and engineering. This convergence has fostered novel ways of thinking and enabled the development of materials, tools, and technologies that have transformed both basic and applied research, as well as how we address critical societal challenges. In this…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An Organometallic Gold(III) Reagent for ¹⁸F Labeling of Unprotected Peptides and Sugars in Aqueous Media

  Organic Letters · 2022 · 19 citations

  -aryl bioconjugates in an aqueous environment in 15 min with high radiochemical yields and displays excellent functional group tolerance. This approach utilizes an air and moisture stable, robust organometallic Au(III) complex and highlights the versatility of designer organometallic reagents as efficient agents for rapid radiolabeling.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Vertex Engineering of the Dodecaborate-Based Broadband Membrane Carriers

  Inorganic Chemistry · 2025-10-09 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Perhalogenated boron clusters have been recently shown to possess promising membrane transport properties for a variety of cargo molecules; however, increased activity has also been correlated with notable toxicity, particularly in the case of iodinated variants. In this work, we report that replacing several of the halogen moieties with hydroxyl groups significantly reduces the cytotoxicity of the resulting perfunctionalized dodecaborate-based derivatives. Live cell imaging studies using a mode…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Inorganic Chemistry Tools for Bioconjugation, Recognition and Imaging

  NIH · $3.7M · 2017–2027

• CAREER: Phosphorescent Organic Light Emitting Diode Materials Featuring Multidentate Carborane-Based Ligands

  NSF · $600k · 2019–2024

• Metal Catalyzed CN and CS Bond Forming Reactions for Bioconjugation Targets

  NIH · $96k · 2012–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Arnold L. Rheingold

  University of California, San Diego

  161 shared

• Jonathan C. Axtell

  University of California, Los Angeles

  149 shared

• Dahee Jung

  124 shared

• Chad A. Mirkin

  Northwestern University

  102 shared

• Julia M. Stauber

  University of California, San Diego

  97 shared

• Kent O. Kirlikovali

  Northwestern University

  73 shared

• Rafal M. Dziedzic

  University of California, Los Angeles

  70 shared

• Heather D. Maynard

  California NanoSystems Institute

  69 shared

Labs

• Spokoyny, Alexander M. UCLA LabPI

Awards & honors

• Fellow (RSC) (2024)
• IIN Trailblazer Award, International Institute for Nanotechn…
• UCLA Community Service and Praxis Award (2022)
• UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award (2021)
• Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2020)

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