2009 School News
(continued from the SCS home page)
The water testing company of Yi Lu has changed its name to ANDalyze and has developed new catalytic DNA biosensor technologies for detection of heavy metals and other chemicals. Environmental Protection article.
Eric Oldfield will be giving Royal Society of Chemistry Soft Matter and Biophysical Chemistry Award Lectures in Manchester, Cardiff and Newcastle, United Kingdom in November. He won this award for his original contributions to biophysical chemistry including his innovative applications of NMR in elucidating the structures of lipids and proteins. His lecture is titled "From NMR and Quantum Chemistry to Drug Design and Chemotherapy". RSC article.
John Rogers, a world leader in designing "flexible electronics", has been named one of this year's 24 MacArthur Fellows. He and collaborators have developed tiny inorganic light-emitting diodes, stretchable integrated circuits and other innovative projects. Rogers will receive $500,000 over the next five years to do with as he wishes. UIUC News Bureau article, News-Gazette article.
Kenneth Suslick and his research group have developed a portable artificial nose that can detect and quantify toxic industrial chemicals in the workplace. Their research was published in the Sept. 13 issue of the journal Nature Chemistry. NIEHS-NIH article.
Anne Baranger and Steven Zimmerman have designed a small molecule that blocks MBNL protein from binding to mutant RNA nucleotides associated with the most common form of muscular dystrophy. Blocking this binding specifically relieves the symptoms of the disease without causing other problems. UIUC News Bureau article.
Producing microcapsules filled with carbon nanotubes, Jeffrey Moore and collaborators have devised a first aid kit for electrical systems to prevent circuits from failing and to increase safety and prolong the life of batteries. They published their research in the Journal of Materials Chemistry. RSC Highlights in Chemical Science article.
In an international collaborative effort, John Rogers and colleagues are now able to print large arrays of ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic LEDs and connect them using thin-film processing that can create general lighting and high-resolution displays that otherwise could not be built. Their research is published in the Aug. 21 issue of Science. UIUC News Bureau article.
Scott Silverman and members of his research group have discovered a deoxyribozyme that cleaves single-stranded DNA with sequence-selectivity and site-selectivity. Their next step is to develop a similar catalyst that cleaves double-stranded DNA. The results of their research are published in Nature Chemical Biology. UIUC News Bureau article.
Hyunjoon Kong is the recipient of a prestigious NSF CAREER Award. The award is given to junior faculty who demonstrate excellence in the coordination of outstanding research and education. His proposal is titled "Integrating Biomaterials and Biology for Control of Cell Function in 3D Matrices".
The Kenneth Suslick research group has created a disposable colorimetric sensor device that can identify 14 different sugar and artificial sweetener products. A paper describing their work was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry and highlighted in a C&EN article and a CNN Radio show.
Yi Lu and co-workers are developing a highly targeted method of delivering anti-cancer drugs that can be turned off if side effects occur. RSC Chemistry World article, and UIUC News Bureau article.
More precise measurement techniques are allowing a rethinking of the conventional wisdom on Brownian motion. Steve Granick and his graduate students are publishing their research on diffusion properties in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. UIUC News Bureau article.
Huimin Zhao has been selected as the 2009 plenary speaker for Area 15C (Biochemical Engineering) for the AIChE Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN in November. He will be presenting his talk titled "Surfing the Third Wave of Biotechnology: Turning Trash into Cash". He is also
invited to be a participant in the NAE U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium.
A greater understanding of how DC-SIGN binds to pathogens such as Ebola, Dengue fever and HIV is elucidated in a paper by Deborah Leckband, et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. UIUC News Bureau article.
Scott Denmark, Deborah Leckband, Thomas Rauchfuss, and Steven Zimmerman were among the first group of scientists elected Fellows of the American Chemical Society. The ACS Fellows Program recognizes members of the American Chemical Society "for outstanding achievements in and contributions to Science, the Profession, and the Society".
Klaus Schulten and collaborators think that a toxic molecule, superoxide, may play a pivotal role in birds' ability to see Earth's magnetic fields. They published their discovery in Biophysical Journal. UIUC News Bureau article.
Roman Boulatov's research group is exploring the breaking points of bonds within molecules. They have come to the conclusion that stretching bonds does not necessarily cause them to break more quickly. UIUC News Bureau article, C&EN article.
The unusual mechanism for the breakup of a non-activated carbon-carbon bond in a single step by a bacterial enzyme is elucidated in a recent Nature article by Wilfred van der Donk and colleagues. UIUC News Bureau article, C&EN article.
Klaus Schulten and Thanh Troung lead teams of researchers using supercomputers to study how antiviral medications interact with the swine flu (A/H1N1) virus proteins and how do the viruses develop resistance to these drugs. Texas Advanced Computing Center article.
Crystal structures of membrane proteins are crucial for understanding how they function in cells, but the crystals are notorously difficult to obtain. Paul Kenis and coworkers have developed a device that allows them to determine the conditions needed to crystallize these proteins. C&EN article contains a video showing the device in action.
Martin Gruebele and fellow reseachers have invented a new technique for inducing proteins to fold, useful in monitoring the proteins and understanding their biomolecular functions. The research was posted on the journal Nature Methods' Web site May 31. UIUC News Bureau article.
ABC News posted an article on John Rogers' and colleagues' artificial eye research. The researchers performed the the difficult feat of connecting arrays of light sensors over a curved surface to emulate an eye. ABC article.
Brendan Harley and colleagues from MIT and Cambridge University have demonstrated the successful regeneration of cartilage and bone utilizing a tissue scaffold. Their findings appear in a recent series of issues of the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research. MIT news article, Forbes article.
The research group of Thomas Rauchfuss has synthesized a model of the active site of the nickel-iron hydrogenase. The model containing a hydride ligand demonstrates that the behavior of these natural catalysts can be understood and optimized. UIUC News Bureau article.
Jeffrey Moore and fellow researchers are investigating the self-sensing and self-reinforcing abilities of polymers using molecular probes called spiropyrans. The mechanoprobes cause reversible vivid color changes in polymeric materials in response to mechanical forces. UIUC News Bureau article, Science News article.
John Hartwig was selected to receive the prestigious 2009/2010 Joseph Chatt Award by the Royal Society of Chemistry for his highly original research in organometallic catalysis. Prof. Hartwig’s work was acknowledged for changing organic synthesis, providing effective catalysts for functionalization of alkanes and arenes, and offering a mechanistic understanding of these reactions.
Richard Braatz, eight former students and postdocs, and collaborators at Merck & Co. were recognized with the 2009 Collaboration Award from the Council for Chemical Research for contributions to process analytical technology for pharmaceutical crystallization.
Roman Boulatov and colleagues have invented a simple and inexpensive method of stretching molecules to explore new reactions mechanisms and to examine how molecules behave under strain. RSC Chemistry World article, UIUC News Bureau article, Nature cover.
Paul Braun develops additive (tiny capsules) that can be added to coatings, giving them extensive self-healing properties without needing external stiumulus to initiate the repair process. Chemical & Engineering News article
Scott Denmark was awarded the Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods at the annual American Chemical Society meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. They cited "his insightful and scholarly analysis of reaction mechanisms that have inspired his creative approach and rigorous development of novel synthetic transformations of broad utility".
Eric Oldfield is the lead scientist of an international group of researchers that have engineered a new bisphosphonate anti-cancer agent that is about 200 times more active in killing tumor cells than similar drugs used in recent chemical trials. UIUC News Bureau article.
Marina Miletic was recently honored by receiving the Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (Instructional Staff), and the Amy L. Devine Recognition Award from the University of Illinois' Alpha Omega Epsilon sorority. In April, she will be awarded the Rose Award for Teaching Excellence from the College of Engineering.
Wilfred van der Donk was selected as the RSC 2009 Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry Lecture Award winner in recognition of his contribution to the field of bioorganic chemistry, particularly related to lantibiotics and molecular processes associated with resistance to antibiotics and bacterial infections. RSC article.
Ben McCall and Martin Burke are both recipients of prestigious 2009 Sloan Research Fellowship Awards. UIUC News Bureau article. Ben McCall also won the Coblentz Award, given annually at the Molecular Spectroscopy Symposium at Ohio State. Coblentz Award information.
John
Hartwig will
receive a 2009
Mitsui Chemicals Catalysis Science Award in March at the International Symposium
on Catalysis Science. He is being honored for his pioneering contributions
to catalytic carbon-hydrogen bond activation, one of the unsolved challenges
in catalytic science, and the realization of new types of transformations
including highly efficient coupling reactions.
Saeed Moghaddam, Richard
Masel, Mark Shannon, et al.
have created the world's smallest working hydrogen fuel cell. It generates net power and may be developed to power simpler electronic systems
or microrobots. New Scientist article.
SCS News — 2008
