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Garegin Papoian, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been named a 2008 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, a national recognition for research and teaching given to outstanding young faculty in the chemical sciences. This $75,000 award was created in 1946 to promote the chemical sciences.
Papoian uses advanced computational methods to study biophysical processes at multiple scales, including protein dynamics, chromatin folding and regulation of cell motility. Packaging of genetic materials in cells of higher organisms is accomplished using chromatin, the complex of DNA and protein found inside the nuclei of cells. Cell motility processes allow cells to move around in the body, for example, to move to a wound site and aid in repair.
Papoian, who has been with our department since 2004, is the winner of numerous awards, including a Beckman Foundation Young Investigators Award, a Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award and an R.J. Reynolds Excellence Junior Faculty Development Award.
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| The 32nd Reaction Mechanisms Conference will be held from June 25 through June 28, 2008, on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. This distinguished conference has held a position of long-standing significance in mechanistic chemistry since its founding sixty years ago. Subjects have traditionally included organic, inorganic, and biological reaction. |
| Click HERE for Conference information and registration. |
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| Crystal Structure of Gold Nanoparticle |
| As published recently in JACS, the Murray Group reports the crystal structure of the thiolate gold nanoparticle [TOA+][Au25(SCH2CH2Ph)18-], where TOA+ = N(C8H17)4+. The crystal structure reveals three types of gold atoms: (a) one central gold atom whose coordination number is 12 (12 bonds to gold atoms); (b) 12 gold atoms that form the vertices of an icosahedron around the central atom, whose coordination number is 6 (five bonds to gold atoms and one to a sulfur atom), and (c) 12 gold atoms that are stellated on 12 of the 20 faces of the Au13 icosahedron. |
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| The arrangement of the latter gold atoms may be influenced by aurophilic bonding. Together they form six orthogonal semirings, or staples, of -Au2(SCH2CH2Ph)3- in an octahedral arrangement around the Au13 core. |
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| Organic Coatings on Aerosol Particles |
| The arrangement of organic molecules on aerosol particles can affect properties ranging from the reactivity of the organic species to the ability of coated aerosols to form cloud condensation nuclei. In a paper to be published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, the Baer group shows that oleic acid, which is released into the atmosphere from meat cooking, arranges itself in islands when vapor-deposited onto both polar, silica, and nonpolar, polystyrene, surfaces. They don’t understand yet why uniformly sized island formation is thermodynamically favored over one large island leading to a monolayer. |
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| Developing an understanding of the conditions under which these islands form will aid in modeling the atmospheric fate and impact of organic- coated aerosol particles. Postdoc Eva Garland and UNC graduate student Eli Rosen did this work in collaboration with Professor Laura Clarke in the Physics Department at NC State. |
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| Open Position - Mass Spectrometrist |
 Position Summary: The Mass Spectrometrist supports the research and teaching programs of the Department of Chemistry and provides leadership and direction in the management of a growing MS facility and it's associated personnel. Link to details |
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| Churchill Scholarship |
 Stephanie Jones has received a 2008–09 Churchill Scholarship, valued at $46,000 to $52,000, for graduate work at Cambridge University in England.Stephanie, a chemistry major with a minor in entrepreneurship, will seek a master’s degree in chemistry in England, aiming at becoming a university research professor. Stephanie is one of 13 Churchill Scholars chosen nationwide by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States. Carolina is the only North Carolina institution with Churchill Scholars this year. Since 1993, 12 UNC students have received the Churchill. Jones graduated from the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics in 2004 and has been conducting research at Carolina since she was a high school junior. She credits chemistry professors Holden Thorp, now dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Muhammad Yousaf for accepting her into their labs and mentoring her. |
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| Functional Anatomy of Phospholipid Binding |
| As recently reported in Molecular Cell by the Redinbo Group in collaboration with the Bankaitis group at UNC, Sec14, the major yeast phosphatidylinositol (PtdIns)/ phosphatidylcholine (PtdCho) transfer protein, regulates essential interfaces between lipid metabolism and membrane trafficking from the trans-Golgi network (TGN). How Sec14 does so remains unclear. They report that Sec14 binds PtdIns and PtdCho at distinct, but overlapping, sites, and both PtdIns and PtdCho-binding activities are essential Sec14 activities. |
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| Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles for Magnetic Resonance Imaging |
| The Lin group recently reported the development of a novel contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging based on mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) [J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 2154-2155]. These porous nanoparticles carry a large payload of gadolinium chelates that are readily accessible to water molecules and can be doped with fluorochromes to enable multimodal imaging. |
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| The MSN contrast agents were successfully used for in vivo MR imaging at very low doses, providing the possibility of eliminating some of the undesired effects associated with the currently used gadolinium-based contrast agents. |
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Last Updated: May 6, 2008 © 2007 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Content Manager: chemcontent@unc.edu |