Newsletter - Vol.1 No.2, Dec. 2010

NEWS from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Vol.1 No.2, Dec. 2010

Editor:  Jenny Takacs jtakacs1@umd.edu

 Contents:  Announcements, Honors and Awards, Contracts, Grants, Papers Published, Invited Presentations, Patents, What’s New, Alumni News

 Announcements

Dr. Eugene Mazzola has accepted a position as Adjunct Professor with Virginia Tech, Department of Chemistry.  This will involve campus visits to advise and consult with the graduate students and their faculty advisors about NMR matters and the interpretation of NMR spectra.

Dr. Dorothy Beckett has joined the Editorial Advisory Board for the ACS Journal Biochemistry. She is also Associate Editor of the journal Protein Science, a position held since 2009.

From Dr. Yue Li , Director, Mass Spectrometry Facility: the installation of DART (Direct Analysis in Real Time) ion source and the upgrade of the AccuTOF mass spectrometer have been completed. DART will be open to all users. 

2012 International Chemistry Olympiad at UMD, College Park – the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry with the American Chemical Society (ACS), will host the 44th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) (www.icho.sk/index.html) in July 2012, the annual chemistry competition for secondary school students from across the globe.

Andrea Morris, Assistant Dean for Development and Corporate Relations, and Natalia White , Chemistry Lecturer, participated in the 2010 International Chemistry Olympiad in Tokyo, Japan, w/ the goal to gather information to assist w/ preparations for the 2012 International Chemistry Olympiad. This event will provide opportunities for corporate sponsors to be recognized, and for individual donors to support these aspiring scientists. Volunteers are being sought to make this event a success for all participants and our University.  Anyone interested in supporting the 2012 International Chemistry Olympiad either via a donation or volunteering should contact Andrea Morris at aemorris@umd.edu.

The Fourkas research group has produced a video that is featured on the web site of Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (http://pubs.acs.org/page/jpclcd/fourkas-video.html) The video describes their work on “Resolution Augmentation through Photo-Induced Deactivation (RAPID) photolithography”, a technique that allows them to create nanoscale patterns with near-infrared light.

2011 Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM) of the American Chemical Society will be held May 21-24, 2011 at the University of Maryland, College Park.  The meeting will feature national and international leaders in the chemical sciences and will include a broad selection of symposia in BIOCHEMISTRY/ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, INORGANIC/MATERIALS CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL/PHYSICAL/ THEORETICAL CHEMISTRY, and CAREER/EDUCATION/PROFESSIONAL areas.  Several workshops are planned, also events that feature career development, funding opportunities, and education.  Read more at www.marmacs.org.

Graduate student Stefanie Sherrill has been elected to the Board of Managers of the Chemical Society of Washington (CSW), and Professor Amy Mullin has been elected Alternate Councilor (2011-2013) of the CSW to the American Chemical Society.  They join Catherine Fenselau , Philip DeShong , and Michael Doyle as active members of the governing body of the CSW.

Nguyen Dao Vu, B.S. in Biochemistry, Dec. 2009, has accepted a position as Research Associate in the Analytical Sciences division at Human Genome Sciences in Rockville. Dao did undergraduate research in Dr. Fenselau’s laboratory for two years.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL RANKINGS: recently released NRC study of Ph.D. programs provides ranges of “illustrative” rankings on multiple measures rather than a single definitive ranking. Data collected for this study was collected in 2005.  The NRC study assessed overall quality of each Ph.D. program based on two different methods, one that is survey based (S) and one that is regression based (R). The chemistry program achieved an S-ranking of 30 (5th percentile) - 85 (95th percentile), so we can say with 90 percent confidence that, based on the S method, our program ranked somewhere between the 30th-best and 85th-best among the 178 programs ranked in its field. Our program achieved an R-ranking of 30 (5th percentile) - 78 (95th percentile), so we can say with 90 percent confidence that, based on this method, we ranked between the 30th-best and 78th-best among the 178 programs ranked in the field. Our biochemistry program achieved an S-ranking of 52 (5th percentile) - 119 (95th percentile), so we can say with 90 percent confidence that, based on the S method, our program ranked somewhere between the 52nd- best and 119th-best among the 159 programs ranked in its field. Our program achieved an R-ranking of 65 (5th percentile) - 114 (95th percentile), so we can say with 90 percent confidence that, based on this method, we ranked between the 65th-best and 114th-best among the 159 programs ranked in the field.

New Post-Docs

The Fourkas and Mullin groups welcome their new Post-Doc, Carlos Toro.  Carlos has his B.S. in Chemistry from La Universidad de Zulia, Venezuela, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Univ. of Central Florida. Research interests: imultiphoton absorption processes, molecular spectroscopy, excited state calculations, high resolution IR spectroscopy, and surface-enhanced IR spectroscopy. The Fourkas and Lee groups also welcome new Post- Doc, Samrat Dutta.  Samrat has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Univ. of Delhi and comes to Maryland from the Univ. of Iowa, Research where he worked with the fabrication of metal nanostructures with nonlinear optical properties for application in areas ranging from photonic circuitry to nanophotolithography.

Awards/Honors:  Students

Maxim Ratnikov, w/ Dr. Doyle’s research group, received a Graduate Assistant in the Area of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship.

Grants

Dr. John Ondov was awarded a grant from JIFSAN/FDA for $181,561 to determine the age of phthalate compounds in foods, such as cheese. Carbon 14 concentrations near 1 part in 10^12 signify natural origin whereas there is essentially no carbon-14 remaining in industrially produced phthalates.   Phthalates are believed to be endocrine disrupters but have been shown to be produced by bacteria, molds, algae: all of which are used in some way in making or processing many foods. The grant is over 2 years w/ Alice Mignerey as coPI. 

 Graduate student Nick Sharp, co-advised by Dr. Alice Mignerey in chemistry and Dr. Bill McDonough in geology, was awarded the DNDO Exploratory Research for Nuclear Detection Technology grant for $490,000. This grant will support work to determine the provenance of used nuclear fuel and will involve on-site work with Savannah River National Lab.

From Kelli Golanoski, President, Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate student organization (GSO):  funding from the Pepsi Enhancement Funds to hold a 5K Run in the spring semester, 2011, has been granted in the amount of $830.  Funds raised through this event will be used to create a graduate student award fund for travel or scholarship. 

Invited Presentations

Dr. Lawrence Sita was an invited speaker at the MACRO2010 43rd IUPAC World Polymer Congress for 'Polymer Science in the Service of Society' in Glasgow, United Kingdom, July 1-16, 2010. He was a plenary invited speaker at the 74th Prague Macromolecular Meeting on 'Contemporary Ways to Tailored-made Polymers' in Prague, Czech Republic, July 18 -22, 2010.  He was a Keynote Speaker at the Inauguration Ceremony of Dr. Samuel Horne (the inventor of synthetic rubber) at the International Rubber Science Hall of Fame at the University of Akron, Ohio, Nov. 5, 2010.  Dr. Sita will present 3 invited talks at the upcoming 2010 Pacifichem meeting, Dec. 15-20, Honolulu, in the following symposia: (a) 'Discrete Coordination Systems with Switchable Structures and Properties' (b) 'Olefin Oligomerization and Polymerization Catalyzed by Early Transition Metals' (c) 'Polyolefins Chemistry and Beyond - From Bench to Commercial Scale'.  

Dr. Sang Bok Lee is an invited expert speaker for the 2nd Nano Today Conference (11-15th December 2011) Hawaii.

Dr. Herman O. Sintim gave an invited talk at the University of Minnesota, Nov. 11, on "Bio-analyte detection with new isothermal amplification strategies and efforts to solve the bacterial resistance problem with small molecules" He spoke at a student-hosted seminar at the University of Pennsylvania, Dec 2, on "Small molecules as regulators of bacterial virulence and biofilm formation"

Dr. Catherine Fenselau will give the colloquium at the Naval Research lab on Dec 8.   She will also present “Middle-down proteomic analysis: A status check” in the symposium on: Enabling mass spectrometric techniques for proteomics, at the 2010 Pacifichem meeting, Dec. 15-20, Honolulu.

Dr. Chris Jarzynski presented a talk titled "Guiding the motion of artificial molecular machines" at a workshop on Optimization in stochastic nano-systems in Delmenhorst, Germany (Oct 10-13, 2010).  On December 4 he presented "Time's arrow at the nanoscale" at a meeting devoted to the subject of Time, in Paris, France.

Dr. Michael Doyle presented “Challenges in Education and Research in the Sciences in a Time of Change” at the Chemical Society of Washington meeting in Washington, D.C., on October 21, 2010; He spoke on "The Magic of Dirhodium" at East China Normal University, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai, China and at Sichuan University, College of Chemistry, Chengdu, China, both in September, 2010 and, lastly, at Mississippi State University, Department of Chemistry, Starkville, MS, November, 2010 .

Dr. Doyle attended the invited "Safety Summit" organized by the Board of Chemical Sciences and Technology of the National Academies entitled ”Identifying Barriers to Universal Culture of Safety in Academic Laboratories" November 16th in Washington, DC.

Papers Published

Yu Liu, Y.; Bakshi, K.; Zavalij, P.; Doyle, M. P. “Pericyclic Reaction of a Zwiterionic Salt of an Enedione-diazoester.  A Novel Strategy for the Synthesis of Highly Functionalized Resorcinols,” Org. Lett. 2010, 12, 4303-4307.

"A new interpretation of total column BrO during Arctic spring" R. J. Salawitch, et al. Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L21805, doi:10.1029/2010GL043798  was featured on the cover of the 21 Nov 2010 issue.  AGU will publish a "Research Spotlight" on this paper in an upcoming issue of their EOS newsletter.

“Isothermal detection of RNA with restriction endonucleases”, Lei Yan, Shizuka Nakayama, Saron Yitbarek, Isabel Greenfield, Herman O. Sintim, Chem. Commun, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0CC02208J (Article included in 2011 Emerging Investigators Special Issue). Paper selected as a HOT article by the editors.

The cover of the October 21, 2010 issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C features collaborative work from groups of John Fourkas, John Weeks, and Rob Walker.  The work by postdoctoral researchers Feng Ding, Zhonghan Hu, Rafael R. Gattass, graduate students Qin Zhong, Michael Brindza, and undergraduate Katherine Manfred, involves simulation and vibrational sum-frequency generation studies of acetonitrile at silica interfaces. 

An article by Lawrence Sita titled “Plastics Manufacturing Process Reduces Need for Crude Oil, Conserves Resources” appears in the 2010 AUTM Better World Report.  This piece reports on the science and technology developed through his research program.

Christopher Jarzynski was quoted in a recent "Nature News" article titled “Demonic device converts information to energy” in the journal Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101114/full/news.2010.606.html

What’s New

Cathy Clark, Executive Administrative Assistant to Dr. Doyle, is the proud grandmother of William Rush Kucharski, born on 7/20/10.   William resides w/ his parents Rhiannon (Cathy’s daughter) and John in Lakewood, CA.J

The November 22 staff meeting was followed by a potluck Thanksgiving luncheon in the Marker Seminar room, where staff members showcased culinary skills and everyone enjoyed the pre-Thanksgiving feast.

Notes From The Past

James McDonald Stewart (b. 2/3/1931) passed away on 9/9/2010 in McConnellsburg, PA at the age of 79.  “Jim” was a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park, from 1961 until 1994. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Western Washington College of Education in 1953 and went on directly to earn his Doctor of Philosophy in 1958. Jim was an internationally renowned scientist in the field of X-Ray Crystallography, and helped pioneer the use of computer technology to dimensionally study inorganic molecular structures. He was recognized by the American Crystallographic Association with the 2001 Fankuchen Award for outstanding contributions to teaching in his field. A devoted, energetic, and patient educator to the end, Jim continued to teach post-secondary science courses well into his retirement years, locally at Juniata College and on-line from his home office for the University of Maryland.

In his assessment of “Quality in Chemistry at Maryland” in 1980, department Chairman James McNesby reported that the number of faculty in 1979 was 49.  He also stated that state support for operating was approximately the same in real dollars as in FY 69 when the department was half its 1979 size.