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posted Dec 13,2007Congratulations to Dr. Szalai on the awarding of the 2007 Alzheimers Association's Investigator-Initiated Research Grant.
For this proposed grant, Dr. Szalai’s team will determine if the process of copper binding to beta-amyloid leads to the creation of toxic beta-amyloid clumps. They will also seek to confirm whether copper-containing beta-amyloid formations generate toxic oxygen compounds. The team’s work will involve a thorough analysis of the structure of molecules formed by copper and beta-amyloid.
Results of this study may help identify copper as a key amyloid-binding metal in the development of Alzheimer pathology. If so, Dr. Szalai’s work may lead to the development of metal-binding drugs that more effectively reduce toxic beta-amyloid production. [ Veronika receives her check] Many thanks to the ACS student associates for the baked goods and homemade slime we enjoyed last week. Please hit the link below for a slideshow of the first day. [ ACSSA chemistry week] I would like to thank the over 300 attendees of the symposium for a wonderful and exciting time. Once again, the quality of all posters was outstanding and picking the winners in each category was daunting. Certificates will soon be sent out to the winners and photos from the event can be found by following the link below. Once again, thank you for your anticipation and we look forward to seeing you next year!! [ Symposium winners] [ Link] Once again the department had beautiful weather for our friday afternoon cook out. I'd like to thank everyone involved in these wonderful get togethers, and look forward to next summer and making this an annual tradition. [ Crab feast] Below is a list of requirements for all chemistry awards. Please put a check next to the award you are applying for. Please return all completed packets to Dennis Cuddy in the Chemistry Department(front desk) no later than January 12, 2009.
Copy of your Transcript.
Briefly tell us what your plans are after graduation.
Provide a paragraph of why you should be a candidate for this award.
Two recommendation letters of support.
__________Victor Vitullo Award for Research
Named after a former distinguished member of the department, the Vitullo award honors an undergraduate student in Chemistry/Biochemistry for research excellence.
___________John Mittino Award for Chemistry Service
Awarded for exceptional level of service in the Chemistry Department.
___________Lise Satterfield Scholarship
The Slatterfield scholarship was established in 2001 and has just attained a level of funding to allow the awarding of endowment funds. Dr. Satterfield has established criteria for the award which recognizes an outstanding junior in chemistry with research experience.
___________Donald Creighton Memorial Scholarship Fund
The Creighton Scholarship was just recently established, by his wife Arlene, in memory of our recently departed colleague. [ Student application] Congratulations to Matthew Loftus, our recent graduate on receiving one of only 34 Jack Kent Cooke graduate scholarships nationwide. These scholarships provide up to $50,000 a year for up to six years of graduate or professional study in any field.
Matt majored in chemistry and will attend the University of Maryland School of Medicine this fall. He aspires to become a physician practicing in the third world, and he is presently working in Yemen.
posted Aug 13,2007Dr. Blotny's Tetrahedron paper entitled "Recent applications of 2,4,6-Trichloro-1,3,5-triazine and its derivatives in organic synthesis" has been recognized as one of the 25 most downloaded articles from tetrahedron on ScienceDirect during 2006.
To put this acheivement in context: Tetrahedron is one of the five most downloaded journals on ScienceDirect, along with Cell and The Lancet. Over one million full text articles are downloaded from tetrahedron puclications each month, thats one article every two and a half seconds. To be in the top 25 most downloaded papers in this volume over the course of a full year speaks volumes to the importance of this work.
Congratulations.
posted Jul 09,2007Listen to Mike Summers, Ph.D. in a roundtable discussion of undergraduate science, technology, engineering and math(STEM)education and the lessons learned at UMBC on the Science website here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5834/78
posted Jul 03,2007The Fishbein group received a five year grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health entitled “Nitrosamine Chemistry and Biochemistry”. The long term goal of the research is to understand fundamental and applied aspects of the chemistry of carcinogenic nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are a large class of compounds of varied structure to which there is human exposure through endogenous formation and environmental sources. Most of the nitrosamines investigated are carcinogenic or mutagenic in the Ames test when activated by liver microsomes. Nitrosamines are found in groundwater, foods, personal care products, and tobacco products and are encountered in a number of industrial environs, in particular in rubber manufacturing and curing facilities, metal and leather working concerns. The mechanism by which the simplest nitrosamines manifest their deleterious actions is reasonably well understood. The proposal also seeks to understand the more complex chemistry of a "non-simple" nitrosamine - N-Nitrosomorpholine (NMOR), among others, - to which there is human exposure. Recent work from this laboratory has demonstrated that a metabolite of NMOR decomposes to give nucleoside adducts of novel structure, ones that contain a pendant aldehyde. Such pendant aldehyde adducts are widely encountered from sources such as other nitrosamines and the products of DNA oxidation and lipid peroxidation as well as other environmental toxicants. The combination of novel technical and synthetic approaches are integrated toward a complete and detailed understanding of fundamental aspects of DNA damage and structures that have broad application.
posted Jul 03,2007Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder that is the 4th leading cause of death in economically developed countries. It currently affects 2.5 to 4 million U.S. residents, but that number is expected to increase substantially as the U.S. population ages. Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is marked by the appearance of neuro-fibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques in brain tissue. Amyloid plaques, believed to catalyze the neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer’s disease, contain repeating units of the protein amyloid-beta. While the global structure of amyloid plaques is beginning to be revealed, local structural factors that facilitate aggregation of amyloid-beta and contribute to plaque formation are not well understood.
Transition metal ions like copper, zinc, and iron have been observed in the amyloid plaques isolated from AD patients, suggesting that they play a role in plaque deposition in vivo. In vitro, these metal ions both increase and decrease the rate of aggregation of amyloid-beta in vitro. These metals may not play exclusively a structural role in the biochemistry of amyloid-beta. In the presence of amyloid-beta, copper and iron may generate reactive oxygen species that lead to neurodamage.
The Szalai group, headed by Dr. Veronika Szalai are investigating the chemistry of metal ions in amyloid plaque neurotoxicity. Certain metal ions may be involved in keeping amyloid-beta in its soluble form, thus inhibiting its deposition in amyloid plaques, while others may initiate plaque formation and neurodegeneration directly. From their studies, they hope to construct a detailed picture of the reactivity of transition metal ions in the presence of amyloid-beta. Specifically, their studies could be beneficial to design of therapeutic strategies because a drug that binds metal ions has already been shown to dissolve amyloid plaques effectively in vitro. Unfortunately, this drug is not specific for any particular metal ion; it binds a host of metal ions with almost equal affinity. Therefore, the drug affects the levels of a variety of metal ions in brain tissue rather than targeting the one metal ion that may be most responsible for the neurotoxicity of amyloid-beta. If they can understand the mechanism of action of metal ions with amyloid-beta, they may be able to focus drug development efforts and provide promising new directions for drug design.
posted Jun 22,2007Congratulations to Matthew Loftus, our recent graduate on receiving one of only 34 Jack Kent Cooke graduate scholarships nationwide. These scholarships provide up to $50,000 a year for up to six years of graduate or professional study in any field.
Matt majored in chemistry and will attend the University of Maryland School of Medicine this fall. He aspires to become a physician practicing in the third world, and he is presently working in Yemen.
posted Jun 01,2007 Stephanie Núñez exemplified excellence while at UMBC, as evidenced by her scholarship support from the Meyerhoff, Goldwater, MARC U*STAR, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Maryland Distinguished Scholar programs. She also served as the community service officer for the Golden Key International Honor Society and won the 2006 UMBC Alumni Association Award for outstanding student in biochemistry. Núñez developed an interest in the science of teeth after a childhood softball accident led to several dental surgeries. She gained hands-on laboratory experience through UMBC research partnerships with the University of Maryland, Baltimore Dental School and Stanford University. While at Stanford she worked with Habla la Noche (“The Night Speaks”), a student organization dedicated to teaching English to Stanford’s hourly staff workers. Núñez played bass clarinet in the UMBC Chamber Players and hopes to join the Life Sciences Orchestra at the University of Michigan, where she will begin her doctoral studies and pursue a career teaching professional dentistry.
posted May 31,2007Koliswa Laird was a winner at the 2007 Graduate research conference for her work entitled: Structural Modeling of the RFX Complex: Implications for Controlling the Human Immune Response.
Congratulations!
posted May 17,2007Loryn Keating and Suma Vavilala, both graduate students in Dr. LaCourse's lab, were awarded first prize ($3000 cash) in the Fillmaster(TM) challenge. Fillmaster(TM)is an accurate and programmable fluid dispenser widely used in pharmacy stores in the U.S. This company challenged students to develop a unique application for their system to stimulate creative thinking in students. Loryn and Suma proposed to use the Fillmaster(TM) as a quantitative tool in the nutraceutical industry.
posted May 09,2007UMBC and partners in the Chemistry Discovery Center celebrated its success with a ribbon cutting and reception on May 11. President Hrabowski began the program followed by a representitive from Senator Mikulski's office and testimonials from Dr. Bill LaCourse and students in the program.
For the full story please see the UMBC homepage at: http://www.umbc.edu/window/
posted May 01,2007Jennifer Fedorowski was awarded first prize for her poster presentation in the afternoon session of the University of Maryland Baltimore Graduate Research Conference on Friday, April 20, 2007. She was highlighted for research performed in Dr. LaCourse’s lab on ‘Pulsed Electrochemical Detection following High Performance Liquid Chromatography of Aminoglycosidic Antibiotics’. The annual GRC provides graduate students, post-docs and trainees with the opportunity to present their research to peers and faculty members of the University of Maryland community.
posted Mar 13,2007Professor Summers has a nice write up about the University and Meyerhoff program in the New York Times (3/13/07). See the whole story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13conv.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
posted Feb 08,2007Honggang Li and Mikella Hankus recently were spotlighted for the production of novel fiber optic nanoprobes for high-resolution, nonscanning chemical imaging in The December issue of Photonics Spectra. The full story can be found here:
http://www.photonics.com/content/spectra/2006/December/nanophotonics/85318.aspx
posted Feb 05,2007 Naresh Sunkara has been appointed to serve on the Graduate Education Advisory Board (GEAB) of the American Chemical Society (ACS). This three-year appointment will begin at the Spring 2007 ACS National Meeting in Chicago, IL. He will work on a committee consisting of 9 senior ACS members and a postdoctoral appointee at each ACS national meeting. The American Chemical Society founded in 1876 is a self-governed individual membership organization that consists of more than 158,000 members at all degree levels and in all fields of chemistry. ACS is the largest scientific society in the world.
The Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) of the American Chemical Society (ACS) received 30 applications nationwide to select a graduate student leader to serve on this distinguished and influential committee of the ACS. The YCC program recognizes emerging leaders in the profession who are especially interested in shaping the future of chemistry graduate education.
The GEAB advises the ACS Office of Graduate Education (OGE) on all matters relevant to graduate education within the chemical sciences. Issues that the GEAB has identified as particularly important for the OGE to address include, but are not limited to, student-professor relationships, advisor-advisee responsibilities, the digital divide, degree requirements, and relations between businesses and graduate programs. For more information about ACS education-related activities and other issues relevant to younger chemists, please visit www.acs.org/education and www.acs.org/ycc.
Naresh Sunkara is a graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, working in the research laboratory of Dr. Katherine Seley(Radtke). His work encompasses the synthesis and methodological development of anti-cancer and anti-viral drugs. Naresh is presently the President of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) and had previously served as the Vice president of the GSA and chaired the Graduate Research Conference (GRC) in 2006.
posted Jan 19,2007Two post-doctoral positions available immediately in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
One position will focus on the development of methods for structural characterization of RNA-protein macromolecular complexes based on state-of-the-art high-resolution mass spectrometry. A strong background in mass spectrometry is required. If necessary, training in biochemistry and molecular biology will be provided. Available instrumentation includes a 7T and a 12T FTICR MS system.
The other will focus on the development of methods for molecular modeling of proteins and protein-RNA complexes from sparse distance constraints. The ideal candidate should have experience in different areas of computational biology/chemistry, including model building, homology modeling, virtual ligand screening and docking. Available tools include a Linux cluster and an SGI graphic workstation including macromolecular crystallography packages, such as X-PLOR, CNS, and others.
Send your C.V. and the names of two professional references to:
Dr. Dan Fabris
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of Maryland, Baltimore County,
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
fabris@umbc.edu
UMBC is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and applications from women, minorities and individuals with disabilities are especially encouraged.
Applications will be received until a suitable candidate is found for each position.
posted Jan 02,2007A Method of Remote Detection of Vapors was developed by Bradley Arnold, Lisa Kelly, Alexander Schill, and Dustin Levy. The development of ultra-high power pulsed lasers with extremely short pulse durations has opened the door to a vast array of applications that would never have been dreamed of even a few years ago. Their laboratories have developed a method of detecting potentially dangerous chemical vapors from a distance of 100 meters or more. This method uses the fact that ultra-short laser pulses must have a distribution of wavelengths (Heisenberg was certain about this) and that different wavelengths of light travel at different speeds in air. This distribution of wavelengths can be arranged such that the light pulse becomes more intense at a controlled distance from their laser. Molecules in the volume of space where the light is most intense become excited and they can emit light of a different color (they fluoresce). The color of the emitted light is a characteristic of the molecules that were excited. If enough molecules are excited initially, the emitted light can stimulate other excited states to emit light and they get light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation (laser). One laser is used to create a different, free-standing, vapor laser that sends a light pulse back to their detectors. The color of the light pulse that is returned, depends upon the molecules that were excited initially. All they have to do is monitor the color of the light pulse returning to us so that they can identify the molecules that produced it.
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