Research News & Events
Announcements Research Experience for Undergraduates
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Mekhala Raghavan has been awarded a Barbour Scholarship for 2009-2010.
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.