You are all invited to attend Jessica Drew's MS thesis defense.

Date: Tuesday, July 8th
Time: 10 am
Location: ITE 227

Some refreshments will be provided, however no food is allowed in the
actual room.

Title: Application of High Throughput Bioreactors in
Subclone Selection

Abstract: The demand for monoclonal antibodies in pharmaceutical drug production
requires the highest technology be invested in obtaining a stable, high
producing cell line. Currently the most common method of selection is by
limiting dilution cloning, done in well plates. The highest producing
cell is chosen after samples from the stationary plates have been
analyzed for antibody production. The selection is based on stationary
culture, even though after scale-up cells will grow in a stirred
environment. This research investigates a way to test multiple clones in
a stirred environment by using high throughput bioreactors (HTBRs) in the
early stages of clone selection. It has been found that simply selecting
subclones based on results from stationary culture could result in the
chance of missing even higher producing clones. Instead, choosing a
clone after analyzing its performance in a stirred environment is an
improved method to select a cell line for further scale-up.

The UMBC College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) invites those interested to a Pre-Commencement Breakfast and Awards Reception

Thursday May 22, 2008
8:30 to 10:30am
Engineering Building Atrium and LH5

The CBE departmental reception for our M.S. and Ph.D. graduating students, which
will be held at noon in ITE 456. The reception consists of a catered lunch, a champagne toast, and an assortment of additional entertaining activities. This event is to celebrate the accomplishments of our graduates. For pictures click here.

Ivan R. Kennedy, PhD DSc(Agric)
Director, SUNFix Centre for Nitrogen Fixation
Associate Dean (Research)
Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources,
University of Sydney, NSW Australia

DATE/TIME/LOCATION:
Monday, May 12 12:00PM, ITE Building, Rm 227

TITLE:
Biothermodynamics for sustainability: Revisiting entropy in the form of biological action directed by DNA

ABSTRACT:
The doctrine of increasing disorder usually said to be predicted by the 2nd Law has given entropy a needlessly bad press. A more positive view of entropy relates it to the physical property of action; entropy then acts as a capacity factor indicating the distribution of energy needed to sustain the current action at a level greater than Planck’s quantum of action characteristic of zero Kelvin. We can consider life as a set of purposive action processes, dependent for its maintenance on access to specific forms of stored action potential or free energy. In this overview (which will consider entropy in all three of its thermal, statistical and action aspects) the thesis that the DNA code-script provides highly selected information needed by living organisms to ensure their survival, by directing available energy towards specific actions, will be discussed.

Anton J. Geisz, Jr. successfully defended his MS today. Anton preformed his research in the Good lab. The title of his dissertation was "Multivalent Sialtic Acid Polymers: A Novel Chemistry."

Jacob A. MGill successfully defended his MS today. Jacob preformed his research in the Castellanos lab. The title of his dissertation was "Development of an Intracellular Infection Model and Integration of Diffusional Virus Effects into a Cellular Automata Simulation."

Christopher B. Cowan successfully defended his PhD today. Christopher preformed his research in the Good lab. The title of his dissertation was "Developing Novel Materials that Capture the Alzheimer's Diseaase Associated Protein Beta Amyloid for Therapeutic & Detection Applications."

Bradford Gates successfully defended his MS today. Brad performed his research in the Castellanos lab. The title of his dissertation was "Beta Amyloid-Neuron Interactions Explored via Computational Modeling.

Derek Smith successfully defended his PhD today. Derek preformed his research in the Center for Advanced Sensing Technologies (CAST). The title of his dissertation was "Plasmonic Enhancement for the Development of High Sensitivity, Low-Cost Fluorescence Sensing With Ultrafast Detection."

Judith Kadarusman Pollack successfully defended her PhD today. Judith preformed her research in the Marten lab. The title of her dissertation was "Study of the morphology and physiology of filamentous fungi during nutrient starvation using the parallel plate flow chamber."

Michael A. Johnson successfully defended his PhD today. Michael performed his research in the Ross lab. The title of his dissertation was "Platelet-S. aureus Interactions: A Study of Thrombus Formation in Whole Blood in the Presence of Bacteria Under Physiological Shear Conditions."

Two CBE graduate students were awarded the Ph.D. in December 2007. Mike Hanson, successfully defended his dissertation, "High Throughput Bioreactor Validation and Use in Mammalian Cell Culture Process Change Studies Utilizing Gene Expression Data," (Co-Advisors Moreira and Rao). Also successfully defending was Wendy Lea, whose research topic was, "Development, Validation and Application of a Biological Antioxidant Capacity Assay using sodA::gfp as a Living Sensor" (Co-Advisors Tolosa and Rao).