Category: chemistry

One thing we missed in the rundown of the Faculty Awards banquet is the announcement of the 2013 Distinguished Research Professors. Among the three awardees is one of our favorite researchers and teachers from the department of chemistry, John Stickney.

Stickney has received worldwide recognition for his contributions to the field of electrochemistry. He singlehandedly invented a method of producing extraordinarily thin semiconductors created one atomic layer at a time through a process he called electrochemical atomic layer epitaxy, or EC-ALE. He patented this approach and founded a company to market equipment for making materials by this process. The materials produced by EC-ALE are of a quality previously unmatched through traditional methods of electrodeposition, and they have great potential in a number of technological applications, including solar energy conversion, as specialty sensors and for catalysis, the process of accelerating a chemical reaction by a catalyst.

I am fortunate to have spent time with Stickney, intervewing and writing about his work several times over the years. The EC-ALE process is fascinating and he can make it sound easy to understand and obvious, a true mark of genius in my view. But more than that, Stickney is as funny and engaging as he is serious and creative about his work. Even in formal settings, he is able to talk about very complex science in a way that makes you want to learn more. He is intrigued and fascinated by his field, and maybe that is one of the keys to thinking creatively about sensors and semiconductors.

The title Distinguished Research Professor is bestowed upon faculty who are internationally recognized for their original contributions to knowledge and whose work promises to foster continued creativity in their discipline. That describes John Stickney perfectly. Congratulations.

UGA researchers have received significant NIH support for development of new tools to detect virus strains of influenza:

researchers are refining a nanotechnology-based method that uses laser light beams to more accurately predict emerging influenza strains-particularly strains with a risk of high mortality. The work will be funded by the National Institutes of Health and will total $1,124,914 over the next four years.

Influenza kills thousands of people each year worldwide-the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 3,000 to 49,000 flu-related deaths occurred annually in the United States alone from 1976 to 2007. Millions are immunized every year against influenza, but vaccines aren't always effective because it is difficult to predict the flu strain for a given year.

Richard Dluhy, professor of chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, along with Stephen Tompkins and Ralph Tripp, associate professor and professor of infectious diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine, respectively, are refining a method used to identify virus strains so researchers can quickly detect components in viruses that affect influenza virulence.

Applications at the nanoscale are literally boundless, though a great amount of expertise and infrastructure is required to tap this potential. Our scientists are working together, leveraging their expertise but also that from other, already-published research to move forward on potential solutions to pressing problems. Congratulations to Dluhy, Tompkins and Tripp on this important work.

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the the division of biological sciences will host a new lecture series on the UGA campus this spring: The Origins Lecture Series

Since mankind’s earliest days the story of our origins has been one of fascination and inspiration.  In an effort to share that story six of UGA’s leading scientists have come together to present the latest scientific findings on everything from our humble beginnings on the plains of east Africa to the formation of the universe itself.  The Origins Lecture Series is intended for the entire Athens community.  In clear and plain language these talks are geared for those who want to know more about who we are, how we got here, and possibly, where we are going.

We'll have much more to say about this in the coming weeks, including a preview of the first lecture in the series by Loris Magnani of the department of physics and astronomy on the Origin of the Universe on Wednesday, January 23. Congratulations and thanks to Mark Farmer, chair of our biological sciences division, for bringing this important lecture series to fruition.

The Athens Banner Herald features the work of LDSOA assistant professor Mark Abbe, GMOA curator Lynn Boland, UGA colleagues from chemistry and the university's Center for Applied Isotope Studies.

The nanoscale continues to unlock dynamic potential of research into therapeutic drug delivery:

researchers at the University of Georgia have refined the drug delivery process further by using nanoparticles to deliver drugs to a specific organelle within cells.

Judy I-Chia Wu, a recent doctoral graduate from the department of chemistry, was one of six young chemists recently honored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Wu, who earned her doctorate in 2011, was awarded the IUPAC Prize for her Ph.D. thesis work titled “Quantification of Virtual Chemical Properties: Strain, Hyperconjugation, Conjugation, and Aromaticity.” She was chosen from more than 40 applicants from 19 countries, and will receive a cash prize of $1,000 and a trip to the 44^th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, where her award will be presented during the opening ceremony of the Congress.

Her work focuses on designing and establishing reliable computational approaches for quantifying chemical properties that are thought to be non-measurable. In the process, she has reexamined and reinterpreted many fundamental explanations regarding the stability of molecules.

Wu’s dissertation advisor was Professor Paul von Rague' Schleyer, and she is currently a research professional in his group. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Tung-Hai University, Taiwan.

To learn more about Wu’s work, see http://www.iupac.org/news/cont/2012/dr-wu-quantification-of-virtual-chemical-properties-strain-hyperconjugation-conjugation-and-aromaticity.html.

Big congratulations to professor Greg Robinson:

Gregory H. Robinson, Franklin Professor and Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia, has been honored with a national award from the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Robinson will be presented with the F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry at the national ACS meeting in April. The award is given to one person annually and recognizes lifetime achievements and distinguished work in synthetic inorganic chemistry with a particular emphasis on creativity and imagination.

Hundreds of undergraduates from nearly every major take an introductory chemistry course each semester, and beginning this fall they’ll benefit from the expertise of professor Norbert Pienta, who will join UGA in July to fill the position of Director of General Chemistry Instruction. Pienta is a leader in the field of chemical education, a research area that focuses on the teaching and learning of chemistry. He is editor of the Journal of Chemical Education, a highly regarded journal published by the American Chemical Society, whose offices will now be housed at UGA.

Pienta is known for his pioneering use of Web-based tools and software for assessing student learning, using electronic data collection and visualization models to improve the understanding of laboratory data, and creating materials about the application of learning theories and best practices in chemistry for faculty and graduate students. He recently began applying his expertise to K-12 education.

Energy-related research, thankfully, continues to filter into numerous basic-science disciplines. Because it is going to take everything we know and more to make a decisive turn toward renewable fuels:

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, two University of Georgia researchers will pursue innovative approaches to more efficient methods of energy transmission and storage that involve maneuvering microscopic particles. Tina Salguero and Gary Douberly, assistant professors of chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, will each receive $750,000 for five years from the DOE’s Office of Science’s Early Career Research Program for potentially groundbreaking, energy-related projects.

“This is tremendous news which continues the very strong performance of the chemistry faculty in recent years,” said UGA President Michael F. Adams. “At a time when this country faces serious questions about the future of its energy supply, research focused on energy efficiency is a national priority. I am proud that Drs. Salguero and Douberly are being supported by the Department of Energy in their groundbreaking research.”

Franklin Professor and Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry Gregory H. Robinson is among the awardees of the 2012 Humboldt Research Award.

The award, which is presented to up to 100 scientists worldwide annually, is granted in recognition of a researcher's entire achievements to date and is presented to academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.

Robinson is internationally known for his work synthesizing chemical compounds that other scientists had dismissed as impossible. In a landmark 1995 paper, he demonstrated that metals can display electronic behavior that was previously only thought possible with carbon-based ring systems such as benzene. These chemical compounds, known as aromatics, are particularly stable, and Robinson's innovations have the potential to improve the performance of semiconductors and electronics. His research team subsequently installed a triple bond between two gallium atoms and later prepared a compound containing an iron-gallium triple bond. In another landmark paper published in 2008, Robinson's team stabilized a new form, or allotrope, of silicon and developed a technique to stabilize highly reactive molecules that otherwise would be fleeting.

"Dr. Robinson's research continues to receive international acclaim, and his accomplishments underscore how research in the basic sciences creates new knowledge with far-reaching applications," said Hugh Ruppersburg, interim dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "The fact that Dr. Henry Schaefer earned a Humboldt Research Award last year is further indication of the esteem with which our faculty members are held."