On November 4, Notre Dame hosted the inaugural Soft Polymer Materials Symposium at McKenna Hall. Twelve Notre Dame faculty and postdocs presented their current research in the areas of general synthesis, application, and characterization of soft polymer materials.
Garima Agrahari, graduate student in the laboratory of Francis J. Castelllino, is a recent recipient of a two year predoctoral fellowship from the Midwest Affiliate of the American Heart Association. The title of her study is “Molecular mechanisms of antiphagocytic activity mediated by Plasminogen binding group A streptococcal M-like protein.”
Prashant Kamat, the Rev. John A. Zahm, C.S.C. Professor of Science in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and concurrent professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been elected as a Prevasi Fellow by the Indian National Science Academy. Kamat was selected for his “most pioneering contributions to the world of science.” His fellowship will begin January 1, 2015.
A team of University of Notre Dame scientists, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Connecticut, have announced the results of a new study on identifying potential targets for personalized cancer vaccines. The paper, “Genomic and bioinformatic profiling of mutational neoepitopes reveals new rules to predict anticancer immunogenicity,” was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The research group at Notre Dame was led by Brian Baker, associate dean for research and graduate studies and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and included Steven Corcelli, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and graduate student Cory Ayers.
Six researchers were honored at a poster presentation during the Sixth Annual Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Meeting, "From Academic Centers to Population Health," on Sept. 26.
Winners were honored for the top three posters in the both the Indiana CTSI-supported researcher category and the scholars and trainees category. Each winner received $1,000.
Rich Taylor, associate vice president for research and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, presented a paper on his research, "Chemical and Biological Synthesis of Polyketide Natural Products", at the 2014 Gordon Research Conference on Natural Products at its annual July meeting. During this year’s conference, Taylor was elected Vice-Chair of the 2015 and Chair of the 2016 conferences to be held at Proctor Academy in Andover, N.H. This annual international meeting provides a forum for experts to share unpublished research results and engage in scientific discussions.
Anthony Serianni, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was recently appointed to a five-year term on the U.S. Advisory Committee for International Carbohydrate Symposia by the CARB Division Executive Committee, a subgroup within the American Chemical Society. Serianni, an elected fellow of the American Chemical Society, will begin his term in early 2015.
In celebration of this year’s National Chemistry Week, Jordan Hall of Science turned into a veritable sweet shop of marshmallows, ice cream and M&Ms, all in the name of science. Chemistry has never sounded so sweet.
A unique partnership initiated by the Harper Cancer Research Institute and consisting of clinical partners from The Medical Foundation (TMF), Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center (SJRMC) and Beacon Health System (BHSMH) will provide an individualized “molecular portrait” to SJRMC and BHSMH cancer patients.
The University of Notre Dame will celebrate the generosity of alumnus Ted H. McCourtney and his wife, Tracy, in a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday (Oct. 4) for a world-class research facility to be named in their honor.
McCourtney Hall, to be located on the east side of the Notre Dame campus near Hesburgh Library, will be a 220,000-square-foot building underwritten by a $35 million gift from the McCourtneys.
Fifth year chemistry graduate student Abigail Weaver recently received a 2014 Baxter Young Investigator Award for her research project, “New Analytical Tools for Qualitative Pharmaceutical Analysis in Field Settings.” Weaver earned a $2,000 cash prize and the opportunity to present her research on-site at Baxter International in Deerfield, Ill. earlier this month.
Jeffrey Peng, associate professor for chemistry and biochemistry and concurrent associate professor of physics was recently selected to serve a three-year term on the editorial board of Biophysical Journal beginning July 1, 2015.
The University of Notre Dame and Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have announced a plan to collaborate on biomedical research projects, student training, joint conferences and other forms of academic exchange.
The Feinstein Institute was founded in 1999 to host the research operations for the North Shore-LIJ Health System. As a leading nonprofit research institute with more than 15,000 patients and volunteers participating in studies each year, this partnership will allow both organizations access to data sets, patient trials and groundbreaking innovations.
A new paper by University of Notre Dame researchers describes their investigations of the fundamental optical properties of a new class of semiconducting materials known as organic-inorganic “hybrid” perovskites.
Fourth year chemistry graduate student Nicholas Myers recently earned a $30,000 United States Pharmacopeia (USP) Global Fellowship for his work related to counterfeit drug detection. Myers was one of three recipients chosen this year in the international competition.
This past June at the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 37 Nobel Laureates met 600 young scientists from around the world —including University of Notre Dame graduate student Douglas Rice — to share their knowledge, establish new contacts, and discuss suchtopics as global health, the latest findings in cancer or AIDS research, challenges in immunology, and future research approaches to medicine.
Prashant Kamat, the Rev. John. A Zahm, C.S.C., Professor of Science, has been selected as a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher and has been included on Thomson Reuters’ list of The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds: 2014. The list includes over 3,200 scientists across the globe who have published the highest number of articles that are cited the most frequently by other researchers. The list was compiled from two separate Thomson Reuters studies that analyzed publication and citation data from 21 broad fields of study, ranging from chemistry to social sciences
Researchers from across the world gathered at the University of Notre Dame for the annual Michael, Marcia, and Christa Parseghian Conference for Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC) Research from June 12-14. More than 70 researchers, patients, and family members attended the conference with some attendees travelling from as far as Chile, Denmark, France, Israel and the United Kingdom for this year’s event. Researchers from Columbia University, the National Institutes of Health, Scripps Research Institute, Stanford University, Tufts University, Weill Cornell Medical College and many other universities and institutions around the United States also came to the conference.
Six cancer researchers from the University of Notre Dame were recognized at the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center’s annual Cancer Research Day on May 29 in Indianapolis. A record 141 abstracts were submitted in various categories from students, faculty and fellows who conduct research at universities around Indiana. Participating institutions including IUPUI, Indiana University-Bloomington, Purdue University, and the Harper Cancer Research Institute, a collaboration between the IU School of Medicine and the University of Notre Dame.
Marya Lieberman, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame, has received a Grand Challenges Explorations grant, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Lieberman will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled “Printed test cards for rapid field screening of human and animal medications.”
W. Robert Scheidt, William K. Warren Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, recently completed a visiting professorship for senior international scientists with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He spent one month at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing giving seminars and serving as a mentor for many students.
Prashant V. Kamat,the Rev. John A, Zahm, C.S.C., Professor of Science in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, received the Research Achievement Award at the annual President’s Dinner on May 20. Established in 2001, the award honors a distinguished faculty member who has made significant contributions to scholarship in his or her discipline and to the research and graduate education goals of the University.
Haifeng Gao, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame, was recently awarded a $150,000 research award from the Chemical Sciences Division of the Department of Army’s Research Office. The research award will begin this summer and can be used for three years of research.
To be considered for the award, Gao submitted a proposal titled, “Regulating inter-polymer chain reaction in nanospace: an efficient method to produce hyperbranched polymer with uniform structure.”
Debra Bennett
A team with a business plan for a simple test that detects oral cancer took the grand prize of $25,000 Friday (April 11) in the Mendoza College of Business’ 15th McCloskey Business Plan Competition at the University of Notre Dame. NanDio competed against five other teams in the final round of the competition, which was sponsored by the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship at Mendoza. The competition awarded $300,000 in cash and prizes.
The College of Science is pleased to announce that Jacob Haley and Ellie Norby have been named Goldwater Scholars. They were selected from thousands of applicants nationwide to receive the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship for the 2014-15 academic year. In addition, Samantha Piekos has earned an honorable mention.
Harper Cancer Research Institute’s third annual Research Day on April 14 (Monday) will gather cancer researchers from the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University School of Medicine-South Bend (IUSM-SB) in a day of exchange and discussion. The event is free and open to the public.
Now that the human genome is sequenced, University of Notre Dame researchers are focusing on the study of the proteome, which is the protein content of an organism, tissue or cell. Bioanalytical chemist Norman Dovichi and molecular biologist Paul Huber have successfully tracked the changing patterns of protein expression during early development of Xenopus laevis, or African clawed frog, embryos. They have developed the largest data set on developmental proteomics for any organism, and have included the single-cell zygote.
A group of Notre Dame researchers, led by Prof. S. Alex Kandel, has discovered a new quasicrystalline material that results from the self-assembly of ferrocene carboxylic acid. When these small molecules form monolayers, they exhibit highly unusual five-fold symmetry. The work is presented in a paper entitled “Self-Assembly of Hydrogen-Bonded Two-Dimensional Quasicrystals” in the March 6, 2014 issue of Nature.
A team of University of Notre Dame researchers led by Mayland Chang and Shahriar Mobashery have discovered a new class of antibiotics to fight bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other drug-resistant bacteria that threaten public health.