Author: Carlos Garcia

Although we are very excited about the upcoming events university, recent developments related to the coronavirus have prompted the decision to cancel the visitation weekend and our research symposium. It is important to mention that Clemson remains free of confirmed cases, but we are very sensitive about potential concerns related to the travel to Clemson and do not want participants to be exposed to any additional risk. We apologize for the cancellation and we hope to be able to organize it at a later time.

Dr. Suzanne Bell to give the keynote Lecture at our Annual Chemistry Research Symposium

Following a tradition started in 2016, The Department of Chemistry is organizing the 5^th Annual Chemistry Department Research Symposium, to be held on Saturday March 14 2020, from 9:00 AM to noon on the Clemson University campus. 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. Perspective graduate students are also invited to the event as a means for them to learn about the research in the department and to interact with our graduate students. Alumni, representatives from local industry and students from local public schools are also encouraged to come. Coffee and refreshments will also be served at the event.

This year’s speaker is Dr. Suzanne Bell, a Professor Emeritus at West Virginia University. Dr. Bell retired last year but was the Chair of the Forensic and Investigative Science Department while at WVU.

Dr. Bell obtained a BS (Chemistry and Criminal Justice majors) from Northern Arizona University and an MS in Forensic Science from the University of New Haven. She joined the New Mexico State Police in 1983 and worked as a forensic chemist and crime scene processor. Next she ventured to Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1985 as a technical staff member. During this time, she obtained a PhD from New Mexico State University. She made the leap to academia in 1994, first at Eastern Washington University where she taught undergraduate chemistry courses and assisted the university and the Washington State Patrol in developing a forensic chemistry major. In 2003, she joined the Chemistry Department at West Virginia University. Currently she imposes her will on the next generation by mentoring chemistry and forensic chemistry students from the BS to post-doctoral level. Her group is active in many forensic and analytical chemistry research areas. She is a member of the Scientific Working Group for Seized Drug Analysis, a commissioner on the Forensic Education Program Accreditation Commission (FEPAC), and was recently appointed to the new National Commission on Forensic Science. In addition to numerous research articles, she has authored and edited many text and reference books including Forensic Chemistry and the 4th edition of Forensic Science: An Introduction to Scientific and Investigative Techniques. The lecture will take place in the main Auditorium of the Watt Center and we are currently working to finalize the details.

The symposium is open to the general public and will feature posters presented by graduate students from each research group in the department as well as undergraduate students and student from surrounding schools.

Congratulations to Jacob Bills, who received a Poster Award at the 2020 Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, in Tucson, Arizona. Jacob presented the poster entitled “Pb Isotope Ratio Analysis in Complex Samples Using the Liquid Sampling – Atmospheric Pressure Glow Discharge Ion Source”. You may read more at the group’s web site.

Katja Hall won a student poster award at the 2020 Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry, held in Tucson, AZ.  The award was sponsored by the RSC Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry.  TheThe work, co authored by Ashli Polanco, George Liang, Ryan Graham, Shaun Galbraith, Seongkyu Yoon, and Ken Marcus was titled: “Utilizing the Liquid Sampling – Atmospheric Pressure Glow Discharge for At-Bioreactor Quantification of Trace Metals in Cell Culture Media via Mass Spectrometry” Congrats Katja!

You may read more about the work performed by Dr. Marcus’ Research Group or check the abstract of the presentation.

Abstract: The growth characteristics of cell culture are often affected by the metal ions present in the feed media. Since even trace amounts of certain metals affect production, controlling both the metal composition and concentrations is a crucial component of cell growth processes. As such, a growing area of bioanalytical chemistry research is the development of methods and instruments capable of continuous, real-time at-bioreactor metal concentration monitoring. Instruments capable of performing these analyses would be incredibly valuable as they could be employed as a production control factor. Currently, few procedures for this application are available, relying on ICP-MS instrumentation. Due to the large size as well as the consumable and utility support requirements of ICP-MS, these instruments are incapable of at-reactor monitoring so discrete samples must be taken on the factory floor and transported to the instrument laboratory. In order to address the shortcomings of ICP-MS instrumentation towards at-bioreactor trace metal analysis, the liquid sampling – atmospheric pressure glow discharge (LS-APGD) has been employed. The LS-APGD is inexpensive to manufacture, cheaper to maintain than an ICP, and has been previously demonstrated to pair well with reduced-format mass spectrometers for elemental analysis. When paired with MS, the LS-APGD is capable of low-ppb level limits of detection for a wide array of metals. Described here is the pairing of the LS-APGD with an Advion compact mass spectrometer (CMS) for the quantification of trace metals in cell culture media. Using the Advion CMS for this application provides the potential to minimize production delays by allowing trace metals analysis to be performed at-reactor instead of transporting samples to an ICP-MS. Described here are the experiments relevant to the initial pairing of the LS-APGD to the Advion CMS towards the bioreactor monitoring application. Parametric optimizations of mass spectrometer operating conditions as well as the LS-APGD operating conditions are described. Figures of merit for key metals relevant to bioreactor analysis are reported and preliminary work with CHO media is discussed.

The Department of Chemistry would like to announce the recipients of the recipients of the 2019 Mandel Fellowships, an award made possible by a gift established in honor of Dr. Frederick Mandel. This year’s recipients are:

• Hall, Katja
• Huang, Sisi
• Sithumini, Menisha
• Liang, Weixiong
• Lu, Zhuomin
• Benavides, Paola
• Cao, Liaoran

Join me in congratulating the awardees, who have achieved an outstanding level of productivity since their arrival to our program. We are thankful for their contribution and we expect that this award contributes to their professional development and success. Also join me in thanking the selection committee (Leah, Boni, Ken, and Bill) for their work.

Ebube Oyeka has been awarded the COSSAB GIAR grant for the 2019-2020 academic year. He joined the department this semester and is already assisting with Dr. Tran with her new lab. His research will focus on designing new materials exhibiting topological magnetic spin textures with potential applications in spintronics technology.

Congratulations!!!

We encourage all to take advantage of these opportunities!

• Surviving Home and Jared Lyon Keynote. Clemson graduate student vet, Tracey Cooper-Harris, is featured in Surviving Home sharing her experiences suing and WINNING against the VA so her wife could gain military dependent benefits. She, along with her wife and the producer and director of the documentary, will be at the viewing to host a Q&A after the viewing. It will be great!

• A Green Zone Training is also occurring this week. This is an excellent training to learn how to best support student vets and military-connected individuals.
•  On Friday, the CEO of Student Veterans of America, Jared Lyon, will be speaking to the campus on the contributions of student vets to Higher Ed and how we can support our vets.

Ellen is moving to the Chemistry Department from the Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences Department where she was the Office Manager. She was the Chair’s assistant along with handling payroll and HR duties. Prior to EEES she had held an Administrative Assistant position in Chemistry handling A/P and accounting duties. She grew up in Clemson and graduated from Clemson University in 1987 with a B.S. in PRTM. She has two daughters; one is a nurse living in Charleston, SC and the other, is a dental assistant living in Washington State with her husband and their son. Ellen is an outdoor enthusiast and animal lover. She has a menagerie of horses, dogs and cats. She enjoys boating on Lake Hartwell and attending dog competitions with her fiancée, Matt Culbreath. She’s a big Clemson fan who attends as many football games as possible and is looking forward the upcoming Clemson softball season!

Monica Spritzky graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Chemistry in May 2019. She was hired by BD as a Chemist working in the Analytical Laboratory located in Covington, GA. Her work consists of performing quantitative and qualitative tests on various products and samples from various locations and divisions of BD using AA, ICP-MS, HPLC, GC-MS, FTIR, in addition to other techniques. Monica values her ability to have hands on experience with almost every instrument and technique required for her new job while at Clemson University. She credits her success to her research in the Casabianca and Whitehead groups and her two industry internships as well as the guidance of her professors. Monica loved her time as a Clemson tiger and as a member of the Clemson Chemistry Department.

Congratulations to Laura McCann, who received one of the prestigious Goldwater Scholarships.

These scholarships were awarded from an estimated pool of over 5,000 college sophomores and juniors, attending 443 academic institutions across the country. The Scholarship Program honoring Senator Barry Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences, and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the preeminent undergraduate award of its type in these fields.

Laura joined our program about three years ago as part of the EUREKA! Program. The intent of the scholarship is to provide support for students and place them in a lab during the summer, so they are exposed to graduate-level research, and Laura got really excited about the possibility to apply a simple dye (that selectively binds to proteins) to understand the driving forces and consequences of the interaction of proteins with cellulose; a rather simple problem that has tremendous consequences for the rational development and implementation of paper-based microfluidic devices. Results of that project have been published in Analyst 142 (2017) 3899 – 3905.

Laura also participated in our program US-Brazil – International Research Experience for Students: Analytical Applications of Nanomaterials and Microfluidic Devices, funded by the National Science Foundation. As part of this experience, Laura traveled to Sao Paulo and performed research leading to the selective oxidation of cellulose and the insertion of a controlled density of functional groups. These chemical groups would enable anchoring reagents in specific parts of the device and tackle the development of color gradients, one of the most significant problems with these devices. Although this semester Laura is in Seville studying Spanish, she will soon be heading to San Jose, CA to participate in the 2019  Nuclear Chemistry Summer School. Laura also recently received the Warwick Chemical Foundation Award in Chemistry.

Without a question, Laura is a true inspiration for other students and we can’t be any happier.

Congrats again!!!!