Author: Carlos Garcia

Read about Kaylan (Dr. Jackson), one of our recent graduates, who is featured along with 4 other outstanding women in science! Read the full article here.  It is a true honor to see her doing so well! 

Last weekend we hosted our 8th Annual Chemistry Department Research Symposium. The purpose of this event is to share the research and accomplishments of the last year with each other and the larger Clemson community that we are a part of.  The Symposium feature 63 posters by both undergraduate and graduate students from the department, as well as students from schools in the surrounding area.

As part of the event, we also hosted Dr. Neil Kelleher (Northwestern University), who offered the keynote lecture “Measuring proteoforms to level up proteomics: applications of Ultra-High Performance Mass Spectrometry in top-down proteomics”. Visit these links to check the book of abstracts and the pictures of the event. 

 The event also overlapped with the visit from a group of students who have applied to graduate program. It was great to spend some time with them and answer all their questions!

We would like to cordially invite students and general public to participate in the 8th Annual Chemistry Department Research Symposium, which will be held from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon on Saturday Feb 25, 2023 at the Watt Innovation Center. The Symposium will feature posters presented by both undergraduate and graduate students and aims to both share their research and accomplishments and bolster interactions with local institutions. This year, we will also feature Dr. Neil Kelleher from Northwestern University.  His research is focused on Proteomics, Natural Products Biosynthesis, and Chromatin Biology. In case you would like to know more about the event, please visit the site https://scienceweb.clemson.edu/acrs/

Students who wish to present posters at the Symposium should submit an abstract by the due day end of Saturday, February 18. It is very easy to submit the abstract online where you will find also all necessary instructions: https://scienceweb.clemson.edu/acrs/program/abstract_submission/

We hope that you find this Symposium to be an exciting opportunity to discuss cutting edge research as well as interact with peers to inspire new ideas and collaborations. We strongly encourage you to participate and enjoy.

Thank you,
The Organization Committee

Please join us in congratulating the recipients of the 2023 Mandel Fellowships, an award made possible by a gift established in honor of Dr. Frederick Mandel. This year’s recipients are:

• Lopez, Claudia
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6KRRB-wAAAAJ&hl
  • Project: Composite and Polymer Formulation Employing Sulfur and Bio-olefin Feedstocks
  • Advisor: Dr. Rhett Smith
• Sheriff, Kirkland
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ukocOBoAAAAJ&hl=en
  • Project: Investigations on New Inorganic and Hybrid Nanomaterials – Synthesis, Characterization, and Properties.
  • Advisor: Dr. Shiou-Jyh Hwu
• Miller, Brock
  
  • Project: Expansion of the Diazacyclobutene Motif for Antiparasitic Evaluation
  • Advisor: Dan Whitehead
• Edirisinghe, Dimuthu
  
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=dimuthu+edirisinghe&hl=en&oi=ao
  • Project: Metal Silicate Complexes as a Versatile Intermediate for the Synthesis of Metal Nanoparticles and Complex Nanostructures
  • Advisor: Prof. George Chumanov
• Kwain, Samuel
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Tf2vzrcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
  • Project: Molecular Modelling-Aided Discovery of Small Molecules for the Selective Inhibition of Polysaccharide Metabolism in Human Gut Microbes
  • Advisors: Dr. Daniel Whitehead and Dr. Brain Dominy
• Wysor, Sarah
  
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=RM_-B4UAAAAJ
  • Project: Two-dimensional Liquid Chromatography using Capillary-Channeled Polymer Fibers
  • Advisor: Dr. R. Kenneth Marcus
• Bandara, Madushi
  • Project: Deep Eutectic Solvents and cocrystals based on Halogen Bonding.
  • Advisor: Dr.Bill Pennington
• Patel, Bhakti
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=G9G1AwoAAAAJ
  • Project: Hydrothermal Synthesis of Novel Single-Crystal Magnetic Materials
  • Advisor: Dr. Joseph Kolis
• Meedin, Shalika
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cL-xNtYAAAAJ&hl=en–
  • Project: Response of Ionizable Polymers to Changing Environments: NMR and Molecular Dynamics (MD) Simulation Studies
  • Advisor: Dr. Dvora Perahia
• Kosgallana, Chathurika
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=J4K-zKQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
  • Project: Ionomer Response to Effects of Dielectrics of the Solvent: Neutron Scattering and Computational Study
  • Advisor: Dr. Dvora Perahia
• Wolsleger, Rhianna
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Ol6ry-UAAAAJ&
  • Project: Development of Mixed O/S-Donor Imidazole Thione Ligands for Trivalent Actinide/Lanthanide Separations
  • Advisor: Dr. Julia Brumaghim

We are thankful for their contribution and we expect that this award contributes to their professional development and success.

Following a long-standing tradition, the Faculty and Staff from our Department celebrated the end of another great year. Many thanks to everyone that was able to join us and (of course) to Wendy Marshall and Bill Pennington for all the work done to host this event.

Please visit our Facebook page to see all the pictures of the event.

Congrats to Lucas Ayres, Jordan Brooks, Kristi Whitehead, and Carlos D Garcia for their article Rapid Detection of Staphylococcus aureus Using Paper-Derived Electrochemical Biosensors, featured as a cover of the prestigious journal Analytical Chemistry.

This paper describes the development of a sensor for the detection of S. aureus using paper-derived carbon electrodes, modified with a thin layer of sputtered gold (that minimizes lateral resistivity and significantly improves the electron transfer process) and with chitosan (used as a binder and coffering flexibility). To control the proposed biosensor, a custom-built potentiostat was developed and applied to detect (via a wireless connection) the presence of the bacteria via the oxidation of the ferrocyanide (produced from ferricyanide by the bacteria’s respiration cycle). The combined use of this wearable sensor with the instrument was also demonstrated by detecting the presence of S. aureus under optimized experimental conditions, in 20 minutes, and without relying on protein-based biorecognition elements. This is a promising avenue for the implementing of paper-derived electrodes towards a wide variety of wearable systems to monitor skin infections in low-income settings. You can read the full article at https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.2c03970

Analytical Chemistry 94 (2022) 16847–16854

Congratulations to Ebube E. Oyeka and Thao T. Tran for the article “Single-Ion Behavior in New 2-D and 3-D Gadolinium 4f7 Materials: CsGd(SO4)2 and Cs[Gd(H2O)3(SO4)2]·H2O”, highlighted by the Editors of ACS Organic & Inorganic Au. The article is available at: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsorginorgau.2c00031 and is part of Dr. Tran‘s current efforts to address challenges in the functional properties of complex optical, magnetic and electronic materials for twenty-first century technologies by applying design-informed materials and chemical approaches.

Congratulations to Charini Maladeniya (and to her advisor, Professor Rhett Smith) who today won the 2022 Three Minute Thesis competition for Clemson University!!

Congratulations to Giovani Gutierrez (a 4th year graduate student in Dr. Kim‘s group), who was accepted to attend Merck’s Emerging Talent Symposium 2022. He was also invited to give an oral presentation on his chemistry.

Congratulations to Dr. Marcus for obtaining a new grant from NIH. The project is funded for 4 years and will provide his lab (along with Dr. Terri Bruce, David Bruce and Sarah Harcum) $1.3 M. Dr. Marcus is a Robert Adger Bowen Professor of Chemistry and his research covers various aspects of analytical chemistry. You can read about his contributions at his google scholar profile.

Project Summary: The desire to tie aspects of fundamental cell biology, the mechanisms of disease propagation, and clinical diagnostics is a major driver for the development of new technologies. Among the biological species that may be exploited along these lines, exosomes are particularly promising. Exosomes are small (30–130 nm) extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from all cell types within the body, which are now realized as key agents in intracellular communication. They exhibit protein biomarkers from their cells of origin, making them promising candidates for use in disease diagnostics. Likewise, much interest lies in the potential use of exosomes as drug delivery vehicles (i.e., vectors).  However, a great deal of fundamental research is necessary before the utility of exosomes is fully realized. A crucial challenge in the application of exosome-based research and application lies in the lack of robust and versatile methods for vesicle isolation from diverse biological media. While isolation and quantification methods have evolved, none have overcome the key issues associated with rigor and reproducibility to cleanly, quickly, and cost-effectively isolate exosomes. To address this void, an extremely efficient platform technology for exosome capture and isolation, based on novel poly(ethylene-terephthalate) (PET) capillary-channeled polymer (C-CP) fibers and films, is being developed for applications across the scales of relevance for basic research, clinical diagnostics, and preparative recovery. Initial results show that the fibers can effectively isolate extracellular vesicles, enriched in exosomes, with size distributions and yields comparable to traditional isolation methods, in much shorter times, smaller volume scales, and higher purity. Proposed here is the further development and validation of this exosome isolation methodology for fundamental research and clinical laboratories, with extension to the preparative-scale for vector applications. As dictated by the objectives of this program, and as demanded by the collective “exosome community”, the ultimate objective of the effort is the delivery of working prototypes for evaluation by scientific peers and potential commercial providers.  The Research and Development program is pursued across three Specific Aims.   In the first, highly permeable chromatography columns created from unique-shaped fibers provide a platform for isolation and purification of exosomes amenable to applications on the clinical, research, and preparative scales, superior to current exosome isolation methodologies.  In the second, implementation of the fibers in spin-down tip format provides greater versatility towards generic- and targeted-exosome harvesting using common, bench-top centrifuges. In the third, C-CP fiber films can be configured to affect a high-efficiency, multiplexed lateral flow immunoassay for clinical diagnostics. It is fully believed that the results of this program will demonstrate that novel C-CP fiber/film isolation platforms will prove to be an efficient, cost-effective means to isolate exosomes for use in fundamental biochemistry research, clinical diagnostics, and preparative applications, and that those characteristics will lead to commercial availability of the platfroms.