Month: September 2020

Christopher Pierce, a junior undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering, was recently awarded funding through SC INBRE along with his mentor Dr. Jessica Larsen. Through the Student-Initiated Research Program (SIRP), Christopher will receive $3,000 to pursue his project which has a basis in drug delivery, biomedicine, and neuroscience.

His project, entitled “Modulation of Polymersome Shape to Enhance Blood-Brain Barrier Uptake”, will explore the effect of hydrophobicity on changing the shape of vesicular nanoparticles called polymersomes. Polymersomes have the benefits of simultaneously encapsulating hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs, evading the immune system, and circulating for extended periods of time. Thermodynamically, polymersomes form into spherical shapes. However, materials natively internalized in cells are not generally spherical. By altering the polymersome shape into various structures, including more elongated rods and more blood-cell like stomatocytes, he aims to increase endothelial uptake to aid in transport of payloads through the blood-brain barrier.

He will develop design rules to create each shape by exploring biodegradable polymers with varying hydrophobicities and altering osmotic pressure gradients. Of the awards given, only two were given to undergraduate students and only one award was given to a student majoring in an engineering field. Congratulations to Christopher Pierce and Dr. Jessica Larsen!

CU-CIA Funded project “Towards the Creation of Biomimetic Complement Protein: Understanding Self-Assembly in Whole Blood” led Dr. Jessica Larsen and Honors College Undergraduate (’20) Lauren Maghak to an accidental discovery.

Maghak and Larsen were working to drive self-assembly of polymers around blood borne pathogens. Their electron microscopy experiments were leading to very unexpected images. Upon further examination and with the addition of lysed controls, Maghak and Larsen began to realize that these clinically-approved polymers were causing dramatic morphological changes to blood cells. These polymers are commonly used in pre-clinical nanomedicine that then fails upon entering clinical trials.

Their project morphed into an exploration of the effect of varying hydrophobicities of polyesters on each major blood component, summarized in their paper entitled “Intact or in Pieces? A Look at How Clinically Approved, Biodegradable Block Co-Polymers Affect Blood Components” published in ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering in July of 2020, which is also present on the cover. This letter can be thought of as a as a call for more thorough testing of polymeric materials in blood prior to clinical trials. This research culminated in an Honors Thesis in Chemical Engineering for recent Biochemistry graduate, Lauren Maghak. Maghak is now pursuing her PhD at Indiana University.

Written by Paul Alongi

Gov. Henry McMaster is honoring a Clemson University associate professor who has won international acclaim for engineering yeast in research that could help humankind reach Mars, develop new drugs and search for nuclear weapons production.

Mark Blenner, the McQueen Quattlebaum Associate Professor, has received a 2020 Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. The award recognizes his contributions to research and teaching.

Blenner, a member of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is the eighth Clemson faculty member in 10 years to win a Governor’s Award.

All but one were in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences at the time of their awards.

“This is an award I’ve seen a lot of outstanding Clemson faculty win, and I’m honored to be on that level,” Blenner said.

Blenner, who joined Clemson in 2012, has raised $10 million from a variety of federal and industry sources to fund his research.

His work in engineering yeast has a wide range of potential.

It could, for example, help astronauts make omega-3 nutritional supplements they could take to stay healthy during the long trip to Mars. Yeast could also be engineered to create biopolymer PHA, a type of polyester that astronauts could feed into a 3D printer to make tools.

Blenner is also using the single-celled fungi to explore new ways of developing drugs and creating sensors that would help search for radiation from nuclear weapons production.

Much of his work has focused on a species of yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica. But his team has begun to explore another species, Cutaneotrichosporon oleaginosus, that remains largely unexplored and shows promise for turning lignin, a byproduct of wood-processing, into omega-3 fatty acids, biofuel or biopolymers.

Blenner has published 28 peer-reviewed papers and three other papers, including one that was the most read article in ACS Synthetic Biology in 2016-17. Two of his articles are classified by the Institute for Scientific Information as “highly cited,” a designation reserved for the top 1% of articles in each journal.

Blenner’s work has been extensively covered in the popular press, including stories in The Washington Post, The Guardian and BBC World News. He wrote a blog post for Scientific American, and an episode of “SciShow Space” featuring his work has been viewed more than 100,000 times.

It’s the latest in a string of accolades for Blenner, capped in summer 2019 with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the nation’s highest honor for researchers early in their careers.

Blenner has excelled at involving his students in prestigious programs, including the Beckman Scholars Program, the U.S. Education Department’s Graduate Assistance for Areas of National Need and the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program.

“The most meaningful part of this award is that it recognizes that I’ve educated a lot of undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers,” Blenner said. “Some stay in South Carolina, and some have gone elsewhere and are representing the state well. They show the high-quality of human capital the state has to offer.”

Previous Governor’s Award winners from Clemson over the past 10 years include John Ballato and Apparao Rao (both 2014), who received the Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. Laine Mears (2011), Brian Powell (2014) and Srikanth Pilla (2018) have received the Young Scientist Award for Excellence in Scientific Research. Joshua Summers (2012) and Barbara Speziale (2010) have won the Award for Excellence in Scientific Awareness.

Governor’s Awards are jointly sponsored by the Governor’s Office and the South Carolina Academy of Sciences.

Our department is proud to officially welcome Dr. Suzanne Roat and Dr. Ming Yang to Clemson University.

Dr. Suzanne Roat is joining our Department as a Professor of Practice. Dr. Roat enjoyed an exciting and rewarding 28-year career working in the oil and gas sector primarily for Chevron Corporation before returning to her alma mater to teach Process Design and Unit Operations Laboratory classes.

Throughout her career, Dr. Roat leveraged her undergraduate Chemical Engineering degree from Clemson (1985) and Master of Science (1987) and PhD (1991) work focused on nonlinear optimal control (both in Chemical Engineering at University of Tennessee, Knoxville) into a full career of supply chain optimization.

When she’s out of the office, Dr. Roat is enjoying more time scuba diving, including becoming a PADI-certified scuba diving instructor.  She has been as deep as 114 meters and dives with a closed-loop rebreather system.

Our department is also very excited to welcome Dr. Ming Yang to Clemson University. Dr. Yang is joining us from General Motors, where he worked as a Senior Researcher for several years. He now serves our department as an Assistant Professor.

His research interests include Catalysis, Advanced Materials, Reaction Engineering for Energy and Environmental Applications.

Dr. Yang holds two Bachelor’s degrees from Tianjin University and Nankai University. He received his Master’s from Tianjin University and holds a doctoral degree from Tufts University.

Outside of work, Dr. Yang loves soccer, sport cars, and traveling. He’s traveled to 45 of the lower 48 states in the past 5 years!

Article written by Paul Alongi. 

Rachel Getman became the first woman to receive tenure in Clemson University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the same year the department celebrated a century of granting degrees.

That was three years ago. Now Getman is first through the door for another honor, one that reflects her national prominence in research, scholarship and teaching.

Getman is the first recipient of the Murdoch Family Endowed Professorship in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

The professorship comes with funding that Getman said she expects to put into hiring a graduate student to help further her lab’s research.

“Every person that you have doing research is an opportunity to work on and explore another problem,” Getman said. “It’s very helpful. I thank all those who have mentored and supported me, those who nominated me for the professorship, and the Murdoch family for their support of Clemson University faculty.”

Larry Murdoch provided the endowment that made the professorship possible. Murdoch received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Clemson in 1963 before going on to graduate school at Iowa State University and a successful career, first in chemical plant operations and then the engineering and construction industry.

He has traveled the world and once lived in Europe for five years, but he hasn’t forgotten what Clemson has meant to him. Murdoch said the quality and dedication of the faculty, led by then-Department Chair Charles Edward Littlejohn, Jr., inspired him and helped lead him to success.

“That’s why I wanted to dedicate the endowment to recognize faculty,” he said. “The quality of an educational institution really boils down to the quality of the faculty, and I know it’s difficult to attract and retain good faculty. There is a lot of competition, and I just want to do a small part to help in that area.”

Murdoch also said that since he began supporting the department in 2011, he has been impressed and inspired by the commitment and improvements implemented by former Department Chair Douglas E. Hirt and the current department chair, David A. Bruce.

Getman’s research is helping lay the groundwork to create more efficient, more effective and less expensive catalysts. Catalysts accelerate the rate of chemical reactions and are crucial to mass-producing a vast range of products from gasoline and diesel fuel to fertilizer and plastic.

“Everything that you’re touching right now has probably seen a catalyst,” Getman said.

Getman’s main contribution has been to develop a multiscale modeling method for quantifying thermodynamics and kinetics of aqueous phase reactions at solid interfaces.

“It’s something that isn’t well established in my field but needs to be to understand a large class of catalytic chemistry,” she said. “To perform simulations at the molecular level is pretty challenging. You have to predict ahead of time all of the correct features that you would want to incorporate into your model. Because no one has a microscope that can look at that level and tell you what’s going on, you have to use your own intuition. Usually, you’re learning as you’re going.”

Getman’s lab includes two post-doctoral researchers, five Ph.D. scholars, one master’s student and one honors undergraduate. Her lab took in 11 interns over the summer when other research opportunities were cancelled because of COVID-19.

Much of her lab’s work involves creating models of chemical reactions on computers and can be done virtually.

“We offered a lot of positions to give people experience doing research they wouldn’t have had otherwise because of the pandemic,” Getman said.

Bruce said Getman is well deserving of the professorship.

“Dr. Getman receives funding from multiple agencies, publishes research in high-quality journals and has an excellent record of mentoring undergraduates,” he said. “Clemson is better off for having her here, and I offer her my deepest congratulations for this professorship.”

Getman’s lab is also collaborating with O. Thompson Mefford, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Clemson. Their work to design magnetic materials could have applications in biomedicine and electronic devices, Getman said.

“We use our methods (created in the Getman lab) to calculate magnetic properties at the molecular level and learn how we can tune those properties to optimize the material for a particular function,” she said.

Getman said what she likes best about her work is helping people reach their potential and achieve their career and personal goals, a value that she sees reflected in her colleagues at Clemson.

All of the students and post-doctoral researchers who have worked in Getman’s lab have been placed in positions that have closely aligned with their goals, she said.

“One of my best accomplishments is that the people who come through my group create a career goal and then they achieve it– and I can’t see how there can be anything better than that as a professor,” she said.

About the Murdoch Family:

Three consecutive generations of Murdochs have graduated from Clemson University. Larry Murdoch, whose donation funded the Murdoch Family Endowed Professorship, was the second generation. He arrived at Clemson after growing up in Abbeville County and received a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 1963, a degree that he credits with preparing him for graduate school and a successful career. His father, Earle Murdoch, was the first in the family to graduate from Clemson, receiving an agronomy degree in 1929.  Three of Larry Murdoch’s children also went to Clemson. Jeffrey Murdoch received a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 1994 and then a Master of Science in computer science in 2000. Brian Murdoch received a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry in 1997. Lindsay Murdoch White received a Bachelor of Science in health science in 2000. A fourth generation is represented by a grandson who is a freshman starting this year. Larry Murdoch retired from full-time work in 2014 but at 79 years old continues to work as a consultant. He and his wife, Pat, live on Greenville’s Eastside.