Sarah Green (Chem) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $62,695 other sponsored activities contract from the Colorado State University.
The project is entitled, “RCN-UBE: Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education (YEAH).” This is a potential five-year project.
Shiyue Fang is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $490,000 research and development grant from the National Science Foundation.
The project is entitled, “CAS: Long Oligodeoxynucleotides Directly from Automated De Novo Synthesis.” Yinan Yuan (CFRES) is a Co-PI on this three-year project.
Momoko Tajiri (Chemistry/MuSTI) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $33,597 research and development grant from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development – Michigan Craft Beer Council.
The project is entitled, “Berries & Brews: Understanding the Market and Technological Processing Opportunities of Michigan Grown Fruit in the Craft Beverage Industry”. Jenny Apriesnig (College of Business/MuSTI), Ezequiel Medici (MEEM/MuSTI), Kazuya Tajiri (MEEM/MuSTI), Lynn Mazzoleni (Chemistry/MuSTI), and Martin Thompson (Chemistry/MuSTI) are co-PIs on this 16-month project.
Graduate students Rashmi Adhikari (Chemistry), Mu Yang (Chemistry), post-doctoral fellow Nabanita Saikia (Physics), graduate students Colina Dutta (Chemistry), Wafa Alharbi (Biological Sciences), associate professor Zhiying Shan (KIP), professor Ravi Pandey (Physics), and associate professor Ashutosh Tiwari (Chemistry) published a paper in ACS Chemical Neuroscience titled “Acetylation of Aβ42 at lysine 16 disrupts amyloid formation” on March 24, 2020.
Tatyana Karabencheva-Christova (Chemistry) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $439,609 research and development grant from the National Institutes of Health.
The project is titled, “Insights in Structure-Function Relationships of Matrix Metalloproteinase-1 from Computational and Experimental Studies.”
This is a potential three-year project
The article by Professor Haiying Liu, Rudy Luck and their research team, entitled “Near-infrared fluorescent probes based on TBET and FRET rhodamine acceptors with different pK(a) values for sensitive ratiometric visualization of pH changes in live cells,” has been selected for inclusion in an online collection highlighting the most popular articles published in Journal of Materials Chemistry B in 2019.
This research has been supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers R15GM114751 and 2R15GM114751-02 (Haiying Liu).
Fluorescent dyes help scientists see the inner workings of disease. In a new paper by Haiying Liu (Chem), Rudy Luck (Chem) and Thomas Werner (Bio Sci)—along with student researchers—they examine the efficacy of a rhodol-based fluorescent dye.
Diseases like Alzheimer’s and certain kinds of cancers affect the powerhouses of cells — mitochondria. To keep these powerhouses working efficiently, cells remove damaged mitochondria. This process, called mitophagy, is like a cell taking out the trash. In diseased cells, the garbage piles up and the cell’s pH changes. The rhodol dye responds to pH changes and glows brighter.
Luck adds that he considers it a privilege to be able to contribute to Liu’s attempts to find commercially viable probes. The team also acknowledges that the High-Performance Computer system Superior, managed under Director Gowtham, has advanced the research considerably.
Read more about the next steps of this research on the campus research blog Unscripted and celebrate National Chemistry Week with other Unscripted reads about surface chemistry, the science of brewing and mass spectrometry.
Some people say scientific research doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Kathryn Perrine, assistant professor of chemistry, would argue otherwise. The field of surface science has made advances in several fields, from transistors in semiconductor technologies, to bioadhesives for medical devices, batteries and catalysts for energy conversion. Modern surface science utilizes surface-sensitive analytical techniques to measure and characterize materials in a pristine atmosphere, in a vacuum of pressures near-equivalent to those of outer space. Under these conditions, one is able to control the adsorption of gases and allow for electron-based spectroscopies to interrogate the surface providing new insights into atomic bonding and molecular reactions.
In particular, one such instrument that Perrine brought to Michigan Tech was X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). This technique enables researchers to measure elemental composition, oxidations states, and chemical binding. In 2016 the XPS was donated to Michigan Tech by the Army Research Laboratories with help from the Department of Chemistry. The XPS is housed in the university’s Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory, and is run by Kathryn Perrine and Timothy Leftwich, research professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department, both of whom are surface scientists.
Currently, Perrine and her research team are studying oxidation reactions on iron surfaces. These materials are earth-abundant and act as catalysts in the natural environment, undergoing oxidation-reduction and decomposing environmental contaminants. Past studies have shown that iron surfaces are catalysts that have largely impacted nitrogen fixation in the agriculture industry, and are also important to the energy sectors. Currently, Perrine and her group are investigating dechlorination and corrosion mechanisms on iron interfaces for understanding water quality, and also the impact that ions play in aqueous environments affecting infrastructure degradation, among other fundamental processes.
“We are working to unravel fundamental surface mechanisms at complex interfaces, such as the liquid-solid interface, and connecting them with reactions at the gas-solid interface. At the gas-solid interface, we can control water vapor and other chemicals that adsorb to a surface. Scaling these reactions up to atmospheric pressures, and even into the condensed phase, allows us to measure how humidity, oxygen, and other dissolved species in water are transformed on the surface of iron materials.”
This knowledge helps to tackle societal challenges related to energy and to water; two key elements driving our technology forward and also preserving our precious resources. Ultimately the technologies we take for granted today were and are impacted by chemistry and surface science.
Students got an unexpected treat at the department’s annual awards program this year, held on April 24 in the Memorial Union Building’s newly remodeled alumni lounge. Three PhD recipients from the department shared some of their experiences, funny stories, and words of wisdom before the student awards were presented.
Special guest of honor was Laura Barrientos, who earned her PhD under the mentorship of Professor Pushpa Murthy in 1995. During her career as a biochemist and structural biologist, she has conducted research at the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Currently, she is owner and founder of Premier Drug Screening, LLC, and owner and president of IntelliGenetics, LLC, headquartered in Atlanta, which is the only AABB-accredited DNA-based relationship testing laboratory in Georgia and surrounding areas authorized to perform biological relationship testing for the US State Department.
After sharing stories of her time at Michigan Tech and some of the exciting stops on her career path, Barrientos offered some advice to the students:
• Set your vision
• The career path is yours and unique. Do not compare it with anyone else’s
• Always leave the doors open
• Reputation is important—guard it
• Writing skills future-proof your careers; polish this crucial skill while in graduate school
• We are in the 21st Century—remember that! Interacting with technology is no longer a choice. In addition to the skills you are learning in a science program, learn basic computer programming
• When it’s time for change, it is an opportunity to test your character and your decision-making skills. After all, what matters the most is what you ended up doing next
• Think forward, never look back
By chance, Parag Jog and Sonali Jog also visited the department that week and were able to attend the awards program, along with their son, and also briefly shared some highlights of their careers after leaving Michigan Tech. Parag and Sonali both earned their PhDs in 2005. Parag, who worked with Professor Dallas Bates, is a project management consultant with Integrated Project Management® in South San Francisco. Sonali, who worked with Professor Pushpa Murthy, is a technical support scientist with bio-techne® in Newark, California.
On a cold winter’s day in 2003, Lois Blau (whom most will remember as the dynamic director of the Chemistry Learning Center (CLC)) discovered a relatively new and innovative academic support service that would transform the landscape of STEM learning support at Michigan Tech in the months and years to come. The program? Supplemental Instruction (SI for short).
SI is a nontraditional form of tutoring that focuses on collaboration, group study, and interaction for students taking “traditionally difficult” courses. Students are provided a trained peer who has successfully negotiated the course. In 50-minute sessions, students receive course-specific learning and study strategies, note-taking and test-taking skills, and structured study time. SI was first deployed at Tech in general chemistry in fall 2004. After attending formal training in Kansas City, Lois was convinced that the program could make a positive impact on campus. The outcome surpassed her expectations. What started as a support service for one introductory course has blossomed into a sophisticated operation in five foundational first-year and second-year courses.
In fall 2018, the CLC experienced record-breaking attendance with nearly 6,000 student visits throughout the semester. The praise belongs to our amazing team of student SI leaders who worked so hard to help our students succeed. SI leaders go through a relatively involved training process before the start of the academic year and attend development sessions throughout the year. In addition, they faithfully attend every course lecture, take notes right alongside the students, and act as model peers. All this puts SI leaders in the best position to run effective sessions.
What makes SI so successful? The harmonious relationship between teaching and talking. To talk is to teach and to teach is to learn. Since talking requires prerequisite thinking on a critical level, she who talks more learns more.
Is SI working? Yes! We consistently see that students who attend SI are scoring 10 percent above their non-attending counterparts on average. For certain classes, the difference has been as high as 15 percent. One might surmise that the difference in achievement level is more of a correlation effect. It turns out, however, that the International Center for SI in Kansas City has ample data to show that this is not the case. When sorting students by any number of metrics the data show that SI is having a causation effect in the improved student outcomes.
We have room to grow. Eventually we would love to test out SI in P-Chem (typically taken in the third year). In addition to growing the program within the department, Jeremy Brown, director of the CLC, plans to extoll the program’s virtues across campus. Michigan Tech is already regarded as a top-notch university, but an active and flourishing SI program could have a propitious effect in aiding our students to learn, thrive, and create the future.