Senkowski Scholarship Award Competition
Each spring, the Chemistry Department runs an award competition open to all freshmen, sophomore, and junior chemistry majors currently enrolled at Rutgers-Newark. To be eligible, a student must be a declared chemistry major by June of this year Award winners are selected based upon the evaluation of grade-point average and two letters of recommendation. The Chemistry Department may award as many as three $1000 scholarships (for tuition) this year. Applications are available in the Chemistry office, room 232 Olson Hall. The deadline for submitting applications is June 1.
Drug Permeation and Wound Healing
The work from the Mendelsohn lab on drug permeation and wound healing using IR and Raman microscopic imaging was discussed in the March 24th, 2008 version of C&E News ( Page 56-7). Professor Mendelsohn had presented the material at the 2008 PittCon meeting in New Orleans at a session entitled Moving from Bench to Bedside.
Chemistry as a Life Science Symposium
The fourteenth biennial Chemistry as a Life Sciences Symposium will be held on the Newark Campus on March 21, 2008. Speakers include, Carl Djerassi, Paul Knochel, Alana Shepartz, Dirk Trauner, Justin DuBois, and Phil Baran. The symposium organizing committee includes scientists from New Jersey pharmaceutical industries, along with Prof. Stan Hall of the Rutgers-Newark Chemistry Department. The symposium is free and open to the public, but advanced registration is required.
Ascorbic Acid Interference on Dopamine Nano-detectors Studied by Huixin He's Group
| Prof. He and her coworkers studied the mechanism of ascorbic acid interference on non-oxidative ultra-sensitive dopamine detectors. Previously, this interference had not been recognized as being important for non-oxidative detectors. The group's article in the Journal Physical Chemistry provides an explanation for the interference based on electrochemical and binding experiments. |
Protein Loop Function Discovered in a Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Multienzyme Complex
| Prof. Jordan and coworkers used the results of X-ray crystallographic studies, kinetics, and spectroscopy to determine the role of a flexible loop in the first pyruvate dehydrogenase component of this multienzyme complex. They find that the loop is important both in local catalysis carried out by the first component, and in communication with the second component in the large 4.6 MDa complex of the functional enzyme. Read more in their J. Biol.Chem. article. |
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Jäkle Research Team Prepares New Type of Conjugated Polymer
| Researchers lead by Prof. Jäkle have developed procedures to prepare polymeric materials containing a highly conjugated backbone with electron-deficient organoborane substituents. The novel materials have electronic properties that make them interesting for use in optoelectronic device applications. The work was recently published as a communication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. |
New Porphyrin Sensitizers for Solar-cell Semiconductors
| Prof. Galoppini and her coworkers synthesized and studied zinc porphyrins for use in photo-sensitizing nanoparticle films prepared from titanium, zinc, and zirconium oxides. They found that the efficiency of solar cells prepared with the porphyrins could be improved by altering the binding geometry and the sensitizer-semiconductor distance. Read more in their J. Am. Chem. Soc. article. |
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Mendelsohn-Group Research Paper Wins Award
| A research paper from Prof. Mendelsohn's group was selected as the winner of the 2007 Meggers Award for the most outstanding paper in Applied Spectroscopy. The paper describes molecular aspects of skin-barrier recovery after exposure to heat, based on the group's time-dependent IR spectroscopy studies. |
Huixin He's Group Develops Nanocomposite Dopamine Detector
| Prof. He's research group fabricated boronic-acid substituted polyaniline nanocomposites with dispersed DNA and funtionalized carbon nanotubes, and developed a novel approach to detect dopamine with high sensitivity using the composite material. Read the details in their recent Analytical Chemistry article. |
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Prof. Galoppini Selected to be a Kavli Fellow
| Prof. Galoppini was recently selected to chair a session of the National Academy of Sciences' Frontiers of Science Symposium as a Kavli Fellow. Her session concerned artificial photosynthesis and alternative energy sources. |
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Unusual Structures of Ferrocenylcopper Complexes Discovered by the Jäkle Group
| Intriguing metal-metal interactions have been identified by Prof. Jäkle and his coworkers in structures determined for ferrocenylcopper complexes prepared in their laboratory. As they note in their Angewandte Chemie communication, the results provide rare structural insights into the reactivity of metallocenes and organocopper complexes. |
Huixin He's Group Prepares Nanoparticles for use as Potential Anti-Cancer Agents
| Prof. He , T. J. Thomas (from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School), and a team coworkers developed procedures to prepare nanoparticles containing anti-sense oligonucleotides, and showed that the particles are transported into breast-cancer cells. Read more in their Nanotechnology article or this news account. |
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Prof. Piotrowiak and Coworkers Probe the Inhomogenity of Electron Injection Rates in Dye-Sensitized TiO2
| In a recent J. Phys. Chem. B article, Prof. Piotrowiak's group and their collaborators at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven showed how the complexities of electron-injection rates in titanium dioxide films could derive from differences in the behavior of individual nanoparticles detected using time-correlated single photon counting. |
Jäkle Group Prepares New Fluorescent Polymers
| Prof. Jäkle and his coworkers developed a new class of fluorescent polymers containing Lewis-acidic boron sites. As described in their J. Am. Chem. Soc. article, the photophysical properties are modulated by interactions with Lewis bases, making the polymers well-suited for sensor applications. |
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Prof. He and Coworkers Discover Stabilizing Power of DNA-wrapped Carbon Nanotubes
| Prof. He's research group found that DNA/nanotube/polyaniline composites are stabilized through reduction of the polymer component during fabrication. The novel materials are expected to show greatly improved perfomance in nanoscale devices. Read more in their J. Am. Chem. Soc. article. |
| In an article published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Prof. Kalodimos and his coworkers describe their discovery of an allosteric effect arising from changes in protein motions during binding events. NMR spectroscopy and thermodynamic studies were used to elucidate the mechanism of cAMP binding to the catabolite activator protein. Also see the research highlight in Nature |
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Special Issue of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta Coedited by Prof. Mendelsohn
| Rich Mendelsohn coedited an issue of BBA devoted to vibrational microscopic imaging. The issue showcases advances in a rapidly growing field that follow from recent conferences at Rutgers-Newark and Heidelberg. A Mendelsohn-group article in the issue describes their use of vibrational microscopy to study molecular aspects of skin permeation. |
Prof. Galoppini and Coworkers Demonstrate the Importance of ZnO Morphology in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
| Prof. Galoppini and her colleagues prepared metalloporphyrin-sensitized ZnO nanorods, and determined electron transport rates for the constructs in nanorod arrays and in colloidal films. Their recent J. Phys. Chem. article describes the utility of the sensitized nanorods in solar-cell fabrication. |
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Spectroscopic Characterization of a Critical Coenzyme Tautomer by the Jordan Group
| Prof. Jordan's research group used UV-Vis and NMR spectroscopy to study a model system designed to mimic an iminopyrimidine tautomer of thiamin diphosphate (TDP). In a Biochemistry article they describe how the results support their recent work on TDP-enzymes identifying the tautomer as the key catalytic form of the coenzyme. |
| Prof. Kalodimos and his coworkers used NMR and ITC (isothermal titration calorimetry) to learn how ATP regulates the action of the secretory protein SecA. Their research, published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (the "article of the month"), shows that disorder-order transitions underlie the allosteric effect. Read more in their paper or in the journal's News and Views article. |
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Senior Dorothy Chu Heads to Sweden for NSF Sponsored Research
| Dorothy will conduct research at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm this summer with support from the the NSF Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) grant awarded to Professors Elena Galoppini and Piotr Piotrowiak at Rutgers Newark, and Gerald Meyer at Johns Hopkins. Read more at nanotechwire.com and see the Rutgers news story. |
Professor Jäkle Wins a Sloan Research Fellowship
| Frieder Jäkle was awarded a 2006 Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Read more about the award and his research on multifunctional and polymeric Lewis acids in a recent news release and Newark Targum article. | 
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Huixin He's Group Positions DNA Strands on Silicon Chips
| Prof. He and her students recently published results demonstrating their method for aligning DNA on silicon chips. The group is now using arrays of DNA as polymerization templates to produce conducting nanowires for nanoscale electronic devices. Read more in their Langmuir article. |