Seminar: Keiji Hirose (Osaka University) - Monday, July 16, 2018 @ 2:00 p.m.

Seminar: Keiji Hirose (Osaka University)

UWinChemBiochem Seminar Series - Winter 2018

Name
Department of Materials Engineering Science
Osaka University
Title: “Elucidation of Molecular Design Guide for Rotaxane Type Molecular Machines under Consideration of Shuttling Dynamics”
Web: http://www.chem.es.osaka-u.ac.jp/supra/en/

Monday, July 16, 2018 @ 2:00 p.m.
Room #109 Essex Hall

**Note location and time***

**Everyone Welcome**

59-410 Undergraduate Research Symposium - Chemistry & Biochemistry - April 23-24, 2018

59-410 Undergraduate Research Symposium - Chemistry & Biochemistry - April 23-24, 2018

Please join us for the 59-410 Undergraduate Research Symposium for the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry:

When: April 23-24, 9:30 AM - 4:00 PM
Where: 186 Essex Hall

All students, faculty, staff, friends, and family are welcome to come see the thesis defences of our top undergraduate research students!

Schedule is below!

Professor Stephen Loeb named as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Congratulations to Professor Stephen Loeb, who has been named as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Prof. Loeb is a world leader in the design of molecular machines and supramolecular chemistry. His team has developed a wide variety of methodologies for the preparation of mechanically interlocked molecules. These molecular machines can be created by synthetically interlocking molecules together which allows the molecular components to move about independently of each other.

Fellows of the Royal Scoiety are nominated by their peers for making remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities, the sciences and in Canadian public life. They are considered to be the best in their field.

He will be inducted to the Fellowship and College of the RSC during the RSC Celebration of Excellence 2017 from November 23 to 26.

A full story on his nomination is available on the Daily News site.

Students claim prizes at chemistry conference

Students claim prizes at chemistry conference

Professor Stephen Loeb congratulates prize-winning chemistry students Mitchell DiPasquale and Jacqueline Gemus.

Two UWindsor students received honours at the Southern Ontario Undergraduate Chemistry Conference, March 18 at York University.

Jacqueline Gemus, a student in professor Rob Schurko’s research group, won first prize in physical chemistry.

Dr. Schurko says Gemus’ main area of interest is the mechanochemical synthesis of porous framework materials known as zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) and the use of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance to monitor the formation of these amazing framework materials.

“Jacqueline has made a wide array of new materials, and this work will be the first that describes ZIFs with mixed linker ligands which are simply made by vigorous grinding — a great example of ‘green chemistry,’ which uses no solvents and produces high yields of the final materials,” says Schurko.

Mitchell DiPasquale, a student from the laboratory of Bulent Mutus, head of chemistry and biochemistry, claimed second place in bio/medicinal chemistry.

Dr. Mutus calls DiPasquale an amazing undergraduate student who has excelled in protein chemistry research and has single-handedly explored the role of a repeating set of amino acids in the enzyme that produces sulfide in the human body.

“His research has, for the first time, shown that this amino acid motif plays a role in the regulation of sulfide production, as well as being responsible for a totally new previously undiscovered activity for this enzyme,” he says.

The University of Windsor was represented at the colloquium by a contingent of 14 undergraduate students from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. A total of 127 presentations by students represented every university in southern Ontario, plus Laurentian and Nipissing.

See the original story at:

http://www.uwindsor.ca/dailynews/2017-03-22/students-claim-prizes-chemistry-conference

Undergrad researchers attend SOUSCC

Undergrad researchers attend SOUSCC

This Year’s Southern Ontario Undergraduate Chemistry Conference (SOUSCC) was held at York University on Sat March 18. There was a total of 127 presentations (Analytical, 21; Bio/Med, 28; Computational, 12; Inorg/Materials, 22; Organic, 32; Phys, 12) from all the universities in Southern Ontario plus Laurentian U and Nipissing U.  

The brilliant undergraduate researchers that represented our Department were:

BRENT ST. ONGE
JOHNNY LUO
JESSE ROPAT
MITCHELL DIPASQUALE
ALEXA DICECCO
ROSE FAYOUMI
ADVAIT DESAI
GREG YOUSIF
MOHAMED HARB
AUSTIN PEACH
JACQUELINE GEMUS
NADIA STEPHANIUK
NATAN VEINBERG
AUSTIN LINDQUIST
MILOSZ BRZOZOWSKI

Faculty attendees: Loeb, Green and Mutus

Two of our students received prizes:

JACQUELINE GEMUS (Schurko Group)- 1st Prize Physical Chemisty
MITCHELL DIPASQUALE (Mutus Group)- 2nd Prize in Bio/Medicinal Chemistry

Congratulations to all!

Submitted by Bulent Mutus, Department Head

Nobel prize in Supramolecular Chemistry - UWindsor contributions to this field cited by Nature

On Wednesday the Nobel for Chemistry was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa, for making molecular machines.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2016/

The journal Nature has recently highlighted some of the important contributions to this field. http://www.nature.com/collections/mzxlcbfyzn/.

Interestingly one of the few not authored by the Nobel Winners is http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v7/n6/full/nchem.2258.html, an article from the from the labs of Stephen Loeb and Rob Schurko and their graduate students and postdocs Kelong Zhu, Christopher A. O'Keefe, and V. Nicholas Vukotic.

In honour of the Nobel Prize being awarded for the design and synthesis of molecular machines, Dr. Mutus hosted a breakfast party on Oct. 7, 2016 to celebrate this win for Supramolecular Chemistry.

Here is Dr. Loeb enjoying a pair of interlocked bagels!

Loeb awarded Erskine Fellowship in New Zealand

Congratulations to Steve Loeb, Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who has been awarded a prestigious Erskine Fellowship from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Erskine Fellowship program provides international visitors with the cost of transportation to New Zealand plus local accommodation and living expenses for the visiting fellow and their spouse. 

The Fellowship requires the visiting fellow to interact with the researchers in the department and give a short series of lectures in their area of expertise to senior undergraduate and graduates students - previous Fellows in Chemistry include 2005 Nobel Laureate Robert Grubbs of Caltech.  Loeb will be visiting New Zealand for six weeks in April and May. In addition to his interactions with University of Canterbury, he will also be giving research lectures at other New Zealand universities; University of Auckland, University of Otago and Massey University.

We wish Professor Loeb success in New Zealand, and safe travels!

For more information on Professor Loeb's research, click here!

Chemistry grad turns in gold-medal doctoral performance

Chemistry grad turns in gold-medal doctoral performance

Soon after taking up graduate study, Nick Vukotic was drawn into sessions brainstorming a problem that had eluded his advisor Stephen Loeb—and others around the world—for years. Dr. Vukotic’s design solution led to a cover article in Nature Chemistry that is now ranked as the most-accessed article of May 2012 in any chemistry journal.

His creativity and problem-solving ability saw Vukotic complete his doctorate in chemistry with a grade average of 96 percent, earning him the Governor General’s Gold Medal for the highest academic standing at the graduate level among his cohort. He will receive the award during the first session of Convocation at the St. Denis Centre on Saturday, October 17.

Vukotic received his BSc in 2009, then began Master’s studies before early transfer to a PhD program. He received graduate scholarships from 2009 to 2014 and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship in 2009 and 2010; the NSERC Canada Graduate Master’s Scholarship in 2010 and 2011; and the NSERC Graduate Doctoral Scholarship from 2011 to 2014. He is the author of 16 publications in refereed journals and a book chapter. Four more manuscripts based on his work are currently in progress.

Serving a post-doctoral fellowship under the Ontario Centres of Excellence TalentEdge program, Vukotic works on the development of x-ray diffraction instrumentation for Proto Manufacturing.

See the original story on the UWindsor Daily News

Two three-minute thesis winners from Chemistry!

A sweep for science: Biology student Rebecca Williams and chemistry students Chris Allan and Heather Filiatrault claimed all the hardware at UWindsor’s inaugural Three Minute Thesis Competition, Monday in the CAW Student Centre.

Congratulations to Chris Allan (Macdonald group) and Heather Filiatrault (Carmichael group) for winning first place and the people's choice awards, respectively, in the Three-Minute Thesis Competition.

From the Daily News:

Winning the University’s inaugural Three Minute Thesis Competition was a little overwhelming for Chris Allan, but he is already looking ahead: “I am really excited to be going to Kingston,” he said.

The doctoral student in chemistry will represent Windsor in the province-wide competition, April 18 at Queens University, after taking top local honours Monday with his presentation “From your TV to the lab: Exploring the reactivity of indium.” He also will receive a $1,000 cash award.

Joining Allan in Kingston will be runner-up Rebecca Williams, a biology student whose presentation “Great Lakes Undercover: Can fish evolve to survive pollution?” was good for the $500 second-place prize.

And crowd favourite Heather Filiatrault won the people’s choice award and $250 with her précis “Stretchable electronics cast in a new light.”

Dean of graduate studies Patti Weir said the competition highlighted the excellent research conducted by graduate students across campus.

“This has been an awesome three days!” she said.

Click here to see the original article.

Rio Tinto Alcan Award Winner: Stephen Loeb

Congratulations to Prof. Stephen Loeb (Canada Research Chair in Supramolecular and Inorganic Chemistry), who was awarded the Rio Tinto Alcan Award for distinguished contributions to the field of inorganic chemistry.

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Stephen Loeb is clearly reticent about tooting his own horn, but as far as friends and colleagues are concerned, it’s high time the chemistry professor was recognized for a career of consistently producing cutting edge research and cranking out top quality graduate students from his lab.

A professor and Canada Research Chair in Supramolecular and Inorganic Chemistry who joined UWindsor in 1990, Dr. Loeb recently learned the Canadian Society for Chemistry awarded him the highly coveted Rio Tinto Alcan Award for distinguished contributions to the field of inorganic chemistry or electrochemistry.

“He’s clearly among Canada’s elite in chemistry, and because of his low-key nature this has been a long time coming,” said Doug Stephan, a past recipient of the award and former UWindsor professor who nominated him for the award. “He’s been quietly publishing stellar material but not making a lot of noise about it.”

Click here to read the full story on the University of Windsor Daily News!

Nick Vukotic wins Ludo Frevel Crystallography Scholarship from the International Centre for Diffraction Data

Congratulations to Nick Vukotic, who has been awarded the Ludo Frevel Crystallography Scholarship from the International Centre for Diffraction Data.

Nick has been involved in trying to create a three-dimensional, interlocking network of functioning molecular machines. The foundation of his work is built on X-ray diffraction, a process which involves analyzing the crystallized forms of chemical compounds by bathing them in a stream of nitrogen and hitting them with an intense X-ray beam in order to obtain a computerized visual image of their molecular structures.

“He’s become a real expert on this technique for analyzing the structure of solid state materials,” said Steve Loeb, Vukotic’s academic supervisor and a Canada Research Chair in Materials Science and Technology. “He’s very creative and he’s an exceptional student.”

Click here to read the whole story on the UWindsor Daily News.