Alumni Event

7th Annual Alumni Event

Dear UIC Chemistry Alumni and Friends:

I am pleased to announce our Seventh Annual Chemistry Alumni Event in the Department, to be held on Thursday, May 14, 2009 . The Alumni Events of the last six years were great successes, with dozens of former UIC chemistry students in attendance. These are an excellent opportunity to celebrate the recent accomplishments of the Department, while meeting fellow alumni and renewing old friendships.

This year our keynote speaker will be Dr. Milan Bruncko. Milan received his PhD from David Crich at UIC in 1995. He is currently a Research Investigator at Abbott Laboratories, where he was given the Outstanding Research Team Award for scientific excellence in 2008. Milan will give the keynote address on “ABT-263, An Orally Bioavailable and Efficacious Inhibitor of Bcl-2 Family Proteins.”

This has been an exciting year for the Chemistry Department. Jung-Hyun Min joined our faculty in March as an assistant professor in biochemistry, and she is currently setting up her lab. Vladimir Gevorgyan was named 2008 Researcher of the Year in Natural Sciences and Engineering at UIC , and Wonhwa Cho will be honored next month with a Graduate Mentoring Award. Among many new research grants received by the faculty, Yoshitaka Ishii received a $2M award from the NIH to purchase an NMR machine for his solid state research.

There have been many more developments in the Chemistry Department, which I encourage you to read about in the latest issue of The Chemical Bond, also available on our website.

I hope that you will be able to visit the Department on May 14 th to see for yourself all the great things that have been happening. As before, the event will have three parts:

• Tours of the Department , led by current graduate students, will show you what has changed (and what hasn't) since you were here. Tours will begin at 2:30pm and last 45 minutes.


• Alumni Colloquium , that will begin at 3:30pm . The colloquium will begin with a half-hour review of the alumni program and recent accomplishments of the Department. At 4:00pm we will also have a seminar presentation by Dr. Milan Bruncko.


• Alumni Reception , from 5:30pm-7:00pm in the UIC Science Learning Center . We will gather here for a reception of hors d'oeuvres and complementary soft drinks. Prior registration is required for this event.

If you are planning to attend the Alumni Event it is important for you to register ahead of time to be certain of a place in the tours and at the reception. You may register online at the UIC Chemistry Web Page (www.chem.uic.edu/alumni/alumdb.html) or by contacting Rhonda Staudohar at the Department's main office at 312-996-3161. Even if you cannot attend this event, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to call me at 312-996-3280 or send me an email at rjgordon@uic.edu to let the faculty and your fellow alumni know what is going on in your life. You are also welcome to share your news on a newly established Chemistry Department guest book, which you can access at www.chem.uic.edu.

I look forward to seeing you in May.

Robert J. Gordon
Professor and Head