Editor: Jenny Takacs jtakacs1@umd.edu
Contents: Announcements, Honors and Awards, Contracts, Grants, Papers Published, Invited Presentations, Patents, WhatÕs New, Alumni News
Announcements
Steve Rokita has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science and was inducted in this year's annual national
meeting in February in
Washington DC. As a Fellow, he joins Norma Allewell,
1985, Bruce B. Jarvis, 1989, Sandra Greer, 1994, Michael P. Doyle,
1995, Catherine Fenselau, 1999, Phillip DeShong, 2001, Samuel Grim,
2002, John Fourkas, 2006, Amy S. Mullin, 2006.
The 4th Annual Frontiers At the Chemistry-Biology Interface Symposium will be held at the University of Delaware, April 30, 2011. This is a day-long symposium intended to highlight research in the mid-Atlantic region for scientists, faculty, post-docs and graduate students. Steve Rokita is a member of the organizing committee. http://www.udel.edu/chem/cbi/Symposium.html
The Chemical Society of Washington Section of the American Chemical Society will host the 42nd Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM 2011) at the University of Maryland, College Park, May 21-24. The theme for this event is ÒInternational Year of Chemistry.Ó Michael Doyle serves as general chair of the meeting; Philip DeShong is the program chair. This meeting will feature national and international leaders in the chemical sciences and will include a broad selection of symposia. Keynote speakers include Eric Wachsman (Energy Institute, UMD) and Clifton Barry (Laboratory for Clinical Infectious Diseases, NIH). Several workshops are planned, and there will be events that feature career development, funding opportunities, and education. Visit the MARM 2011 website for evolving program details, abstract submission, registration, and hotel information. http://www.marmacs.org/2011
Michael Doyle was elected President of the Chemical Society of Washington for 2011. Graduate student Stephanie Sherrill and Professor Catherine Fenselau are Members of the CSW Board of Managers, and Professors Phillip DeShong and Amy Mullin are Alternate Councilors for the American Chemical Society.
A planning meeting of the Scientific Committee for the 2012 International Chemistry Olympiad was held February 4-5 in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i03/8703notw9.html
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Maryland is one of only nine college and university science departments to receive a 3-year Beckman Scholars Award this year. Organized by Amy Mullin, who wrote the proposal, the
Beckman Scholars Program is the most elite program in the country to support research with undergraduate students. Established in 2007, the Beckman Scholars Program at Maryland provides scholarships that contribute significantly in advancing the education, research training and personal development of select students in chemistry, biochemistry, and the biological and medical sciences. The sustained, in-depth undergraduate research experiences and comprehensive faculty mentoring are unique in terms of program scope, content and level of scholarship awards; $17,600 for two summers and one academic year.
John Weeks and Christopher Jarzynski are now Associate Editors of the Journal of Statistical Physics.
Sang Bok Lee joined the Editorial Board of Nanomedicine, and will serve as the Guest Editor for the Special Focus Issue on ÔNanotoxicologyÕ.
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry held the second international UMD-KAIST Symposium on January 20 & 21, 2011, at UMD, on the theme ÔEmerging Sciences and TechnologyÕ; organized by Sang Bok Lee, John Fourkas, and Michael Doyle.
The GSO is now on facebook, name: UMD Chemistry and Biochemistry Grad Students
New Post-Docs
Welcome to Chris Rivera, a new post-doc w/ the Fourkas group. Chris received his doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Southern California.
Awards/Honors
Jack Tossell (Emeritus) has been awarded the 2011 Geochemistry Division Medal of the American Chemical Society, to be presented at a Symposium in his honor at the spring 2011 ACS Meeting in Anaheim.
Graduate students Dominique Downing, Williamson Oloo, and Rennisha Wickham have been given travel awards (Advancing Science Awards) from the National Organization for the Professional Development of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) to attend the 38th Annual Conference in Houston, Texas, April 19-22, 2011.
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Jacob Sama, a senior undergraduate HHMI research fellow in the laboratory of Kwaku Dayie, received a first prize Frank and Sara McKnight Undergraduate Prizes in the Molecular Sciences cash award of $2000. This prestigious and very competitive award is offered to undergraduate seniors around the country who have done laboratory research in chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics or computational biology. Finalists were invited to attend the annual Biochemistry Retreat of the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Centre in New Braunfels, where they compete in a poster presentation to win. Read more at: http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept23109/files/304738.html
Davit Potoyan, a chemical physics student w/ Garegin Papoian, is a winner of the Biophysical Society 2011 Student Research Achievement Award. Davit won in the category of ÒIntrinsically Disordered ProteinÓ during a competition of over 300 students at the SocietyÕs annual meeting in Baltimore in March. This award includes a monetary prize.
Jia Wei, a graduate student w/ Lawrence Sita,
has been selected to present at the 7th Excellence in Graduate
Polymer Research Symposium at the ACS National
Meeting in Liz Nguyen, a graduate student w/ Sang Bok Lee, was awarded the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) NSF Fellowship to South Korea where she will conduct research at the Korea Advance Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) this summer. William Walters has just received his Ò50 YearÓ pin from the American Chemical Society.
Invited Presentations
Sang Bok Lee presented ÒHeterogeneous Multifunctional Nanowires for supercapacitors: Fast ElectrochemistryÓ at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, February 20, and also gave the News Briefing on February 19 at the meeting. George Helz presented talks entitled "Making Chlorine Greener" and "Molybdenum, the Dead Zone Indicator" at Trent University, Peterborough Ontario, March 2-4.
Kwaku Dayie spoke at the Frontiers of NMR in Biology, Big Sky Resort, Montana, January 8-13th, 2011.
Daniel Falvey spoke at the 2010 Pacifichem meeting, Dec. 15-20, Honolulu.
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William Walters gave two talks at the 8th Russbach Workshop on Nuclear Astrophysics, March 14-19 in Russbach, Austria, entitled ÒRadioactive decay studies at ISOLDE and the impact on ideas about r-process nucleosynthesis and nuclear structureÒ and a talk honoring Professor Dr. Karl-Ludwig Kratz of the University of Mainz, Germany, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
Catherine Fenselau presented a lecture before the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh on Feb. 16 and a colloquium in the Dept. of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh, Feb 17.
Christopher Jarzynski presented on the ÒIrreversibility and the Second Law of Thermodynamics at the NanoscaleÓ at the Physics Department Colloquium at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, on February 7, 2011.
Papers Published
Salawitch, R. J., et al., ÒA new interpretation of total column BrO during Arctic springÓ, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, (2010), L21805, doi:10.1029/2010GL043798.
Sita, Lawrence R., ÒPrecise Route To PolypropylenesÓ C&EN December 20, 2010, Chemical Year In Review 2010 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/email/html/8851cover.html
Alexander, Milliard H., ÒChemical Kinetics Under TestÓ Science 331, 411 (2011); DOI: 10.1126/science.1201509 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/411.full.html
Stocker, Michael P., Li, Linjie, Gattass , Ravael R., Fourkas, John T., ÒMultiphoton Photoresists Giving Nanoscale Resolution that is Inversely Dependent on Exposure TimeÓ Nature Chemistry Volume: 3, Pages: 225–229 Year published: (2011) DOI: doi:10.1038/-nchem.965 http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nchem.965.html
Jarzynski, Christopher, ÒEqualities and Inequalities: Irreversibility and the Second Law of Thermodynamics at the NanoscaleÓ Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol. 2: 329-351 (Vol. pub. March 2011). Published online as a Review in Advance on 11/22/2010 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-062910-140506
Bryan C. Eigenbrodt, Michael B. Pomfret, Daniel A. Steinhurst, Jeffrey C. Owrutsky, Robert A. Walker ÒDirect, In Situ Optical Studies of Ni−YSZ Anodes in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Operating with Methanol and MethaneÓ J. Phys. Chem. C, 2011, 115 (6), pp 2895–2903 DOI: 10.1021/jp109292r http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jpccck/115/6
Michael P. McCrane, Emily E. Weinert, Ying Lin, Eugene P.
Mazzola, Yiu-Fai Lam, Peter F. Scholl, Steven E. Rokita "Trapping a Labile Adduct
formed between
an ortho-Quinone Methide and 2'-Deoxycytidine" Organic
Letters 2011, 13,
1186–1189 SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1(DOI: 10.1021/ol200071p)
SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Abulfazl Fakhari M., Steven E. Rokita ÒA New Solvatochromic Fluorophore with High Sensitivity for Studying BiopolymersÓ Chem. Commun., 2011, in press. (DOI: 0.1039/c0cc04917d)
Ran Liu, Jonathon Duay, Sang Bok Lee, ÒHeterogeneous Nanostructured Electrode Materials for Electrochemical Energy StorageÓ, Chem. Comm., 2011, 47, 1384 - 1404. (Cover Article)
Byoung Yeon Won, Sujeong Shin, Songyi Baek, Ye Lim Jung, Taihua Li, Sung Chul Shin, Dae-Yeon Cho, Sang Bok Lee, Hyun Gyu Park, ÒInvestigation of the signaling mechanism and verification of the performance of an electrochemical real-time PCR system based on the interaction of methylene blue with DNAÓ, Analyst, 2011, in print, DOI: 10.1039/c0an00695e.
Ran Liu, Jonathon Duay, Sang Bok Lee, ÒRedox Exchange Induced MnO2-Nanoparticle Enrichment in Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) Nanowires for Electrochemical Energy StorageÓ, ACS Nano, 2010, 4, 4299–4307.
Truong, P. Xu, X. Doyle, M. P ÒAn Efficient Methodology to Substituted Furans via Oxidation of Functionalized α-Diazo-β-ketoacetates,Ó Tetrahedron Lett., 2011, doi.org/10.1016/j.tetlet.2010.11.166
Doyle, M. P., Ratnikov, M,. Liu, Y ÒIntramolecular catalytic asymmetric carbon-hydrogen insertion reactions. Synthetic advantages in comparison with alternative approachesÓ Org. Biomol. Chem. 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0OB00698J
Michael Doyle is quoted in the C&E News article on ÒDoctoral DilemmaÓ. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/89/8905sci1.html
WhatÕs New
Carl Womack, Director of Finances, will run a 1/2 marathon on May 15, 2011 to raise funds for the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenbaum Cancer Center. The center will receive 100% of any funds raised. CarlÕs goal is to raise $1500 for the center. Read more about this very worthy cause at: http://www.mdhalfmarathon.com/Page.aspx?pid=546&frsid=2141
Congratulations to Cathy Clark (Dr. DoyleÕs Executive Administrative Assistant) and Greg Fisanich who were married on 12.28.2010.
Alumni News
William Shadrick (Ph.D., Julin) postdoctoral fellow, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, joined the PAAC and ASBMB policy group for ÒGraduate Student/Postdoc Hill DayÓ on 9/21/2010 on Capitol Hill to help persuade Congress of the importance of continued funding of biomedical research. Read more at ASBMD today, Nov. 2010. http://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/
Dr. Emily Weinert, former Ph.D. student w/ Steve Rokita has been offered a tenure track position w/ Emory University, Dept. of Chemistry.
In Memoriam
On February 21, 2011, Dr. Herman F. Kraybill, Chem MS Õ38, PhD Õ41, passed away in Silver Spring, MD. Dr. Kraybill was a Chemistry and Biochemistry Ph.D. alumnus who, following his service as a U.S. Army Nutrition Officer during WWII, pursued a successful career in biomedical research fields including biochemistry, toxicology, and environmental and occupational carcinogenesis.
Dr. Kraybill, a retired biochemist, who worked for years with the National Institutes of Health, Environmental Cancer Program, was very much committed to supporting students who are breaking new ground in research closely linked to biomedical advances. In 2007, he established the Kraybill Biochemistry Graduate Student Fellowship in support of outstanding Ph.D. candidates pursuing studies at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.