The Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago is hosting an Open House on Saturday, October 30, 2010 to describe the opportunities for undergraduate students who wish to pursue a Ph.D. degree. The Open House will begin at 9:30 AM and conclude at 2:30 PM. -

Aunica Jones, an LAS Undergraduate Research Initiative Awardee working in the laboratory of Professor Leslie Fung, has been invited to present her research and her research experience at the upcoming Creating a CULTURE OF RESEARCH on Campus workshop at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA. Held October 15-16th, 2010, this event is a seminar for Deans, Faculty, IT Specialists, Librarians, and Research Officers. Aunica is currently using affinity chromatography to purify different enzymes targeted for drug development, such as PurE, following procedures developed for spectrin purification.

The Alumni Day plays an important part of the academic year of the UIC Chemistry Department. As one of the largest departments in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, we have awarded more than 500 Ph.D. and an even greater number of B.A. and B.S. degrees since our foundation in 1965. Since education represents a central theme of our department’s mission, each year we invite the undergraduate and graduate alumni of our program to campus for an update on department activities, to meet old friends and to participate in the annual Alumni Day Lecture and reception.
We are honored this year to have as our speaker, Dr. Adrian E. Roitberg, a former graduate student of Professor Ron Elber (Ph.D. 1992) and current faculty member in Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. Professor Roitberg is member of the Quantum Theory Project, which has the distinction of being the world's largest research center for theory, modeling, and computation of complex, novel molecular and materials systems.

The work of Professor Petr Král and his research group on the self-assembly of three-dimensional nanostructures from individual planar graphene sheets (“soggy origami”) has recently been highlighted in the magazine Nature (2009, 462, 658). Petr’s innovative modeling study has found that when water nanodroplets are positioned on graphene sheets they can drive and guide their self-assembly to form more complex structures. Remarkably, water nanodroplets were found to induce induce rapid bending, folding, sliding, rolling, and zipping of the sheets, leading to their self-assembly into sandwiches, capsules, knots, and rings (Nano Lett. 2009, 9, 3766). In a related study with applications in bioelectronics, the Král group has also demonstrated that graphene flakes can be stabilized inside biological membranes (ACS Nano 2010, 4, 229).

Luke Hanley, Chemistry Department member, analytical chemist and this years’ winner of the UIC Researcher of the Year Award in the Natural Sciences and Engineering, is a recognized leader in the field of surface analysis and its application to biomaterials and bacterial biofilms. Citing Luke’s outstanding scientific contributions to this field and his success in attracting external support, the UIC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research recently bestowed this award.

Department member and physical chemist, Professor Michael Trenary is among the 531 new fellows recently named by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Mike was selected “for distinguished contributions to the field of surface chemistry, particularly for the use of infrared spectroscopy to identify and characterize novel chemical species on metal surfaces,” as cited by AAAS. Founded in 1847, the AAAS is the publisher of Science and the world’s largest general scientific society, with 126,995 individual and institutional members. The annual AAAS tradition of naming fellows dates back to 1874.

Earlier this fall, Aunica Jones won an LAS Undergraduate Research Initiative Award and is using affinity chromatography to purify different enzymes targeted for drug development, including PurE, a mutase involved in the bacterial biosynthesis of purine.

UIC Chemistry Professor Donald Wink is the PI on a new, $5,000,000 NSF grant to reform the teaching of math and science at Chicago Public High Schools. The project, which includes four other Chicago-area universities, will support 160 teachers at 40 schools over the next five years.

On July 30th, Professor Donald Wink presented testimony to the US Congress describing the ways in which UIC impacts K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics teaching, part of a hearing on "A Systems Approach to Improving K-12 STEM Education." He was accompanied by Dr. Wanda Ward, Acting Assistant NSF Director, Mrs. Maggie Daley, Chair of After School Matters, Mr. Michael Lach, Director of the CPS Office of Teaching and Learning, and Ms. Katherine Pickus, Vice President for Global Citizenship and Policy of Abbott Laboratories.
Read the written testimony:
http://science.house.gov/publications/Testimony.aspx?TID=15185

Good Students Come in Fours! Since joining the Chemistry Department in 2004, Professor Leslie Fung has proven to be an enthusiastic and effective mentor of undergraduate students, four of whom have recently won awards for their research. For her work on mutant spectrin as a means to understand the interactions between the subunits of this protein, Mary Youkhana has received the newly inaugurated Caterpillar Undergraduate Research Award, while Mallory McLaughlin and Mohini Pathria have won Kabbes Undergraduate Research Awards. Mallory is using a recently published E. coli two-hybrid method with fluorescent detection to study the binding of brain proteins to spectrin. Mohinin, on the other hand, is designing a model protein to study the formation of functional brain spectrin tetramers. Earlier this fall, Aunica Jones won an LAS Undergraduate Research Initiative Award and is using affinity chromatography to purify different enzymes targeted for drug development, including PurE, a mutase involved in the bacterial biosynthesis of purine.
If you are an undergraduate student interested in research opportunities in the Chemistry Department, you can learn more here, or contact a faculty

Prof. Robert Gordon -- Chemists can analyze the composition of a suspected bomb -- without actually touching and possibly detonating it -- using a technique called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, or LIBS.

Prof. Yoshitaka Ishii -- Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, or SSNMR, is a valuable tool to image and analyze the chemical makeup of proteins and other biomolecules. But the imaging process is time-consuming and requires large amounts of costly isotope-labeled sample for study.

Prof. Yoshitaka Ishii -- A research team including chemists at the University of Illinois at Chicago has detailed the molecular structure of graphite oxide...potential for advanced electronic devices and batteries.

Prof. Tom Driver -- Part of almost all the top 200 brand-name drugs is a nitrogen-containing ring-shaped structure that chemists call an "N-heterocycle."... A University of Illinois at Chicago research group may have found a faster, cleaner, "greener" way to streamline these chemical reactions, and the National Institutes of Health has just awarded the team a five-year, $1.48 million grant to prove its effectiveness.