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Research News
& Events
New insights into
cause of diabetes emerge from U-M research. Ayyalusamy
Ramamoorthy and co-workers show in the new study (published in J. Am.
Chem. Soc.) that membrane damage can occur independently
of amyloid formation and that the protein involved, known
as Islet Amyloid Polypeptide Protein (IAPP), has separate
regions responsible for amyloid formation and membrane disruption.
More details can be found at http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6522.
Football illustrates
biological interactions: "Molecules in the membrane arena are entertainers," Ayyalusamy
Ramamoorthy says. "In their own way, they run, block, dodge and dance just like football players in a stadium." For
more details, visit http://www.ur.umich.edu/0708/Apr07_08/02.php.
Fluorous Peptides Get Ready To Heal. A collaborative research project between the research labs of Prof. Neil
Marsh, Prof. Ayyalusamy
Ramamoorthy, and Dr. Charles Shelburne successfully demonstrated the use of fluorinated amino acids to enhance the potency of antimicrobial peptides. More details can be found at http://ase.tufts.edu/chemistry/kumar/group/html/8537sci2.html, and also in a recent publication ChemBioChem 9 (2008) 370-373.
Amino Acid
Response to Stress,
Chemical Biology, March 14, 2008
Kate Carroll led
the research team who developed a probe to follow
oxidation of the amino acid cysteine. Additional
information can be found at RSC
Publishing.
Nanovideo
captures motion of RNA molecules in 3-D.
Using an innovative variation on conventional
solution state NMR spectroscopy, the University
of Michigan researcher, Hashim
Al-Hashimi and his coworkers have produced
a "nanovideo" that
reveals in three dimensions how RNA molecules change
shape—information
that may prove useful in developing drugs against
viruses such as HIV.
Jacqueline
Cole (postdoc- Morris
Lab) was named an Endocrine Society Fellow - an
award to attend and present her at a special
day-long seminar immediately before the meeting
of the American Society for Bone and Mineral
Research in Honolulu (September). Only 75 are
awarded nation-wide, with no more than one per
institution.
Karen (Dehring) Esmonde-White:
received the best poster award at
FACSS 2007. Karen is a BME grad student doing her
research in the Morris lab.
Francis Esmonde-White. (Morris
Lab) received the best poster award at FACSS
2007. Francis will join the Morris lab as a postdoc
after he defends his dissertation at McGill University
in December.
Matthew Schulmerich was named
a Tomas
Hirschfeld Scholar - an award to attend and present
his work at FACSS 2007. Matt is a previous
(2005) winner of a best poster award at FACSS.
Mother Nature's
Blowtorch
Using atom-level imaging techniques,
University researchers have revealed
important structural details of an enzyme system
known as "Mother Nature's
blowtorch" for its role in helping the body efficiently
break down many
drugs and toxins. "The challenge was something
like having a room full of
people and trying to get good photos of every one of
them," says Ayyalusamy
Ramamoorthy, an associate professor of chemistry
and biophysics. "With one
picture, you probably can't do it. But if you say, 'Everyone
over age 50
stand up,' and you take one picture, and then you ask
for another age group
and take another picture, and so on, you have a better
chance." Prof.
Ramamoorthy's team also is studying other membrane-associated
proteins, a
group that includes many biologically important
molecules. Prof. Ramamoorthy's research group
collaborates on the most recent work with
Prof. Lucy
Waskell's research group. More
details.
Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered
Polymer Nanocomposites
By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells,
University of Michigan researchers created a composite plastic that's
as strong as steel but lighter and transparent. It's made of layers
of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry
with white glue. These non-soluble, non-crystallizable materials are
well characterized at a very high-resolution using sophisticated solid-state
NMR techniques. This collaborative research between the research groups
of Prof. Nicholas
Kotov, Prof. Ayyalusamy
Ramamoorthy and others at
UM is described in a recent publication: Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered
Polymer Nanocomposites, Science. 318 (2007) 80-83.
Natural antibiotics
yield secrets to atom-level imaging technique.
Frog skin and human lungs hold secrets to developing
new antibiotics, and a technique called solid-state
NMR spectroscopy is a key to unlocking those secrets.
That's the view of U-M researcher Ayyalusamy
Ramamoorthy,
who was scheduled to discuss his group's progress
toward that goal March 3 at the annual meeting of
the Biophysical Society in Baltimore, MD.
More
details.
Myra Beaudoin
Bertrand, who works
in John Wolfe's lab is the recipient
of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Graduate Fellowship in Organic
Chemistry (2007-08). She is one of only five recipients
nationwide. Please join me in congratulating her and
Dr. Wolfe.
Sara Buhrlage, who
works in Anna Mapp's lab is the recipient of the ACS
Division of Medicinal Chemistry Predoctoral Fellowship
(2007-08). She is one of only seven recipients nationwide.
Please join me in congratulating her and Dr. Mapp.
Julie Adamson, a graduate student
in Kristina
Hakansson's lab, is the recipient of
the Eastman Chemical Company Analytical Focus
School Fellowship. This
is a very competitive fellowship for which Julie
should be commended for her submission. Julie
will receive a $5500 fellowship which will provide
her with summer support and Dr. Hakansson will
receive a $500 unrestricted grant to further her
own research program.
Crystal Tuning from Science,
Volume 311, Number 5769, Issue of 31 March 2006
Chemists can rationally tune the extended structure of thin films
by choosing the substrate on which the films are grown. However,
the growth conditions that yield specific morphologies of three-dimensional
crystals are still largely determined by trial and error, without
a clear understanding of the factors that promote specific
structural outcomes.
Grzesiak et al. (Adam
Matzger lab) sought to influence
the structure of a metal organic framework solid
by adding insoluble polymers to the crystallization
solutions, for the purpose of guiding the nucleation
process and thereby producing unusual bulk morphologies.
The suspended polymers contained either acidic
(methacrylic acid) or basic (4-vinylpyridine)
components in varied proportion to a hydrophobic
cross-linker (divinylbenzene). In the absence
of polymer, two crystal phases were known to
form from the Zn2 and benzenedicarboxylate building
blocks. A distinct third phase emerged when predominantly
nonpolar polymers were added (>70 % divinylbenzene),
and the authors characterized its plate-like structure
by powder and single-crystal x-ray diffraction,
as well as Raman spectroscopy. This heterogeneous
nucleation strategy produced additional phases
when the benzenedicarboxylate bridges were functionalized
with either Br or NH2 groups. Angew. Chem.
Int. Ed. 45, 10.1002/anie.200504312 (2006)
Chemical and Engineering
News, Science Concentrates
March 27, 2006, Volume 84, Number 13,
p. 32
Intracellular zinc detector
Zinc plays both physiological
and pathological roles in biology, and its concentration
in eukaryotic cells is estimated to be as high
as 200 UM.
Because most of this zinc remains tightly bound
to proteins, chemists have long wondered exactly
how much "free" or exchangeable zinc
is actually available. Now, a team led by Richard
B. Thompson of the University of Maryland School
of Medicine and Carol
Fierke of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
has developed a sensor to directly image and quantify
zinc in resting mammalian cells (ACS Chem.
Biol.2006, 1, 103).
They use their sensor to estimate that the rat
tumor and hamster ovary cells they tested are approximately
5 pM in free zinc. This value is significantly
higher than the femtomolar concentrations proposed
for bacterial cells. The zinc biosensor is based
on fluorescence resonance energy transfer from
a zinc-bound aryl sulfonamide to a fluorophore
tethered to a cell-permeable version of carbonic
anhydrase, an enzyme that's highly selective for
and sensitive to zinc.
Kurtulus Golcuk,
postdoc in Michael
Morris's lab,
and Nadder Sahar, grad student with David Kohn
in biomedical engineering, shared the best poster
award at the Midwest Biomedical Engineering Conference
in Ann Arbor last week. Their poster was: EFFECTS
OF EXERCISE ON BONE QUALITY AS SHOWN BY RAMAN
MICROSPECTROSCOPY (Nadder Sahar, David H. Kohn,
Kurtulus Golcuk, Michael D. Morris). Nadder
and Kurtulus will share a $100 prize.
New
method for observing RNA molecules is
developed by UM researchers. It's now known
that RNA can store and relay genetic information,
regulate gene expression and other important
cellular processes and act as a sort of sensor—detecting
cellular signals and carrying out appropriate
reactions in response. "RNA molecules
are involved in all sorts of vital processes,
from your ability to develop from a cluster
of small cells into an organism, to the proper
functioning of your immune system," said Hashim
Al-Hashimi. RNA also is essential to viruses
such as HIV, which have no DNA and instead
rely heavily on RNA to both carry and execute
genetic instructions for everything the virus
needs to invade and kill its host. The research
is described in the Feb. 3, 2006 issue of the
journal Science.
Jim
Penner-Hahn and
other scientists from the University of Michigan
and Northwestern University
used
x-ray absorption spectroscopy at Stanford Synchrotron
Radiation Laboratory to
understand how lead can interfere with proteins
that help transform DNA blueprints into working
proteins that run the body.
Matthew
Schulmerich (Michael
Morris Lab) received a 2005 FACSS Student
Presentation Award for Outstanding Student
Poster Presentations this week at the Federation
of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopies Societies
annual meeting in Quebec City. He received
the award for his poster, Subsurface Raman
Spectroscopy of Highly Scattering Systems using
a Non-Confocal Fiber Optic Array Probe (William
F. Finney, Richard Fredericks, Michael D. Morris,
co-authors).
Matthew’s work was
also featured on the cover of Applied Spectroscopy
in February 2006. FACSS is generally considered the most important
analytical spectroscopy meeting of the year, so
the award is quite significant. I am also pleased
to report that Richard Fredericks, one of his co-authors,
is a Chemistry undergraduate who is working on
the project with Matthew. This year FACSS gave
each awardee an iPod Nano.
Basic RNA enzyme research by Nils Walter and coworkers promises single-molecule biosensors.
Richard
Sacks
and Mark Libardoni have developed a set of instruments, a version
of 2D gas chromatography, to analyze compounds in human breath.
It has the potential for detecting and monitoring many medical conditions,
including cancer. The device is proving so sensitive to metabolites
in the body that it can detect their presence in parts per trillion.
Sacks says the goal is to get the detection devices to process faster
and become small enough for people to strap on their wrists or wear
as a pin. In another application, he envisions soldiers wearing
the device to immediately detect hazardous substances in a battle
zone.
Kathleen
Nolta has been appointed to a Senior Lecturership effective
September 1, 2004. Senior Lectureships are awarded on a competitive
basis by the LSA Executive Committee, and recognize superlative
teaching and/or contributions to curriculum development and pedagogical
research. There are only 10 Senior Lecturer's in the College, and
Kathleen is the first chemistry colleague to be so recognized. Kathleen's
selection reflects her extraordinary contributions to the teaching
program in the Department and to the phenomenal impact she has had
on so many of our students--majors and non-majors alike.
Removing
Roadblock for Using Fuel Cells. In a May article in Science,
UM's chemist, Omar Yaghi's
porous "crystal sponges' received national
attention as a potential way to give a fuel-cell
powered car enough stored hydrogen fuel to travel
hundreds of miles.
Investigating
a Surface Science Mystery: The Case of the
Disappearing Monolayer
by KS Schneider, TM Owens, DR Fosnacht, BG Orr
and MM
Banaszak Holl
A recent X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning tunneling
microscopy (STM) investigation of an alkylsilane-based monolayer
has yielded intriguing chemical and physical phenomena.
Anthony
H. (Rick) Francis, was named UM
Associate Vice President for Research by the Board of Regents.
Francis's appointment begins Sept. 1. Francis will succeed James
E. Penner-Hahn who served as an Associate Vice President for
Research since May 1, 2000.
James
E. Penner-Hahn accepted a position as chair of the Biophysics
Research Division (BRD), a unit of the Office of the Vice President
for Research.
Jeff Anker
(Kopelman) received the Grand Prize ($33,000) for the Hall of Fame
International Collegiate Inventors Competition for his invention
of MagMOONs (Magnetically Modulated Optical
Nano-Explorers), which are of much promise in fluorescence-based
nano-biotechnology.
Targeting
Transcription: New Insights into Turning Genes On.
Anna Mapp and coworkers
gain important insights into the workings of gene-activating transcription
factors.
Mimicking
mollusks to control crystal forms. In the quest for new and
better drugs, researchers typically concentrate on a compound
chemical structure. Adam
Matzger's research group explores new ways of doing that.
Jerome and Isabella Karle Collegiate Professorship in Chemistry Inaugural Lecture
The Jerome and Isabella Karle Collegiate Professorship
in Chemistry Inaugural Lecture "Biochemistry of Zinc: Catalysis & Homeostasis" Carol
Fierke, Professor of Chemistry Lecture took place
on March 24, 2004, 4:10 p.m. in the Rackham Amphitheater Lecture Abstract: A large number of proteins bind zinc ions that play regulatory and catalytic functions. One zinc metalloprotein, protein farnesyltransferase, catalyzes the addition of a lipid group to the C-terminus of a number of proteins important in the cell cycle machinery and is therefore a novel target for anti-tumor drugs. The catalytic mechanism, specificity and inhibition of FTase are examined. Additionally the mechanisms that a cell uses to regulate the concentration of zinc ions will be explored using a novel carbonic anhydrase-based metal ion biosensor.
What Scientists and Policymakers Can Learn from Each Other
Tobin Smith, AAU, took place on Thursday, March 18, 2004
How can scientists better communicate with policymakers and, what are the consequences if they don't? And, how can policymakers benefit from knowing more about science? In this talk, Tobin Smith, Senior Federal Relations Office for the Association of American Universities (AAU), Washington D.C., discussed the cultural divide that exists between the scientific community and politicians. Topics covered in this talk included: the need for the scientific community to take a greater interest in ensuring that their work is understood and appreciated by the general public; the need for more scientists to take a more activerole in the policy making process; and potential careers opportunities that exist in science policy. This was an excellent opportunity to discuss current science policy issues that are currently being considered in Washington, D.C.
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