Chemistry happenings: Faculty news 2015
If it's been a while since you've checked in with us, you may be curious about what's happening in our classrooms and labs. Here's a peek at some of the latest developments happening throughout our department.
Faculty news
Stephanie L. Brock named ACS fellow
Inorganic Chemistry Professor Stephanie Brock was among a select group of scientists named to the prestigious 2014 American Chemical Society (ACS) Fellows program. Only 99 scientists across the globe were inducted this year. Brock joins two other WSU faculty members James H. Rigby (2010) and H. Bernard Schlegel (2012) as an ACS fellow. Brock has been recognized for her research work on the synthesis of nanoscale materials, which have functional properties that may potentially address a number of global technological and societal challenges in the areas of renewable/clean energy, environmental remediation, data storage and refrigeration/microclimate control. Her work with Wayne State's GO-GIRL program was also recognized by the society. Brock was inducted at a special event held at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco on August 11.
David Coleman retires
Recently, a large group gathered at Detroit's Bayview Yacht Club to celebrate the retirement of Professor David Coleman. Coleman joined the department in 1977 following Ph.D. and post-doc studies at the University of Wisconsin. During his tenure, he graduated 14 Ph.D. students in the field of analytical atomic spectroscopy, as well as numerous M.S. and B.S. candidates. He also served as associate chairman of the department. For the past 12 years, he was director of the Lumigen Instrument Center and saw that facility through its largest period of development including serving as PI for multiple new instruments and overseeing the design and implementation of a $3 million renovation. For three years, he also served as director of the WSU Nanofabrication Laboratory (nFab). Coleman also played key roles in every aspect of the $80 million renovation of the A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building; he continues to informally consult for the LIC. David and his wife, Patricia, plan to spend time at their retirement home in northern Minnesota and enjoy time with their children and grandchildren. David also enjoys playing jazz trombone with various ensembles, large and small. He said he is grateful to the chemistry department for a wonderful career.
Research group updates
Young-Hoon Ahn, assistant professor, biochemistry
Young-Hoon Ahn joined the chemistry faculty in 2012, following post-doctoral work in Philip Cole's lab at Johns Hopkins University. His research group focuses on developing novel chemical tools for understanding complex oxidative protein modifications that may occur in cancer and cardiovascular disease. His group recently reported the new chemical method for detecting glutathionylation by engineering glutathione synthetase enzymes in the Journal of American Chemical Society. This new approach has great potential for understanding protein glutathionylation in pathological diseases in the future. Ahn received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from Pohang University of Science and Technology in Korea in 1999 and 2001. He then moved to the United States and received his Ph.D. in chemistry at New York University under the guidance of Young-Tae Chang.
Matthew Allen, Associate Professor, Inorganic Chemistry
Research from Matthew Allen's group involves the aqueous chemistry of lanthanides or has relevance in medical imaging. Over the last few years, the group's research assistants have made several exciting discoveries and received several awards. Zhijin Lin discovered that water-exchange rate trends are reversed in ionic liquids compared to water or organic solvents, and Levi Ekanger found a way to detect changes in oxidation using europium complexes encapsulated in liposomes with magnetic resonance imaging that is independent of the concentration of europium. These recently published findings have implications in the fields of catalysis and disease diagnosis and are supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A complete list of publications can be found at chem.wayne.edu/allengroup.
Andrew Feig, associate professor, biochemistry
Great things have been happening in the Feig lab over the last two years. Four students defended their doctorates and moved on to positions across the country. Also, several new grants have helped fund laboratory research and related educational initiatives, including the recent NIH-funded REBUILD Detroit grant a $21 million collaboration between Wayne State University, University of Detroit Mercy, Marygrove College and Wayne County Community College District to promote institutional changes at all four Detroit institutions to enhance the educational experiences of minority students and improve retention within STEM, graduation rates across campus and more successful articulation between schools. Two new graduate students Brianna Jackman and Adam Boyden joined the lab last November to carry on their work with Clostridial toxins.
Federico A. Rabuffetti, assistant professor, inorganic chemistry
The Rabuffetti group focuses on the development of luminescent solid-state materials and nanomaterials employed in bioimaging (fluorescent biomarkers) and solid-state lighting (phosphors for white LEDs). Both topics are at the forefront of fundamental and applied research relevant to medical imaging and diagnostics and energy conversion. The group seeks to develop new classes of functional materials that surpass the current state-of-the-art via precise control over the materials' composition and morphology. Once in hand, these materials will be characterized using complementary spectroscopic techniques to achieve a comprehensive description of composition-structure-function relationships. This information is critical to developing materials by design as it enables understanding of the effect of chemical composition on the behavior of functional chemical units. Structural studies will be an integral part of the research performed in the group and systematically guide synthetic efforts.
Sarah Trimpin, Associate Professor, Analytical Chemistry
In research supported by an NSF CAREER award, Trimpin's research group discovered new methods for converting compounds such as drugs, lipids, peptides, proteins and synthetic polymers into gas-phase ions for characterization using mass spectrometry. These new ionization methods have advantages of simplicity and speed of analysis relative to the traditional ionization technologies that previously opened new areas for materials characterization using mass spectrometry and earned the inventors a portion of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Trimpin group discovered astonishing matrix compounds that lift even large proteins into gas-phase ions simply by exposure to the vacuum inherent with any mass spectrometer. Trimpin has applied for several patents on this work. The fundamental research resulted in another NSF award to continue studying the fundamentals of this unprecedented ionization process. In November 2013, Trimpin and a collaborator started MSTM LLC, a company dedicated to converting these inventions to products with the goal of replacing current ionization technology in areas such as proteomics and lipidomics, and to eventually open new areas such as clinical analyses and homeland security using Trimpins' new technology with mass spectrometry. Professor Trimpin has received numerous accolades from industry, professional societies and Wayne State University. She recently accepted a secondary appointment at Wayne State's Cardiovascular Research Institute.