July 2006

From the Dean

During the past month, I’ve been honored to attend the retirement parties of Professors Galen Dively in Entomology and Gerald Miller in Chemistry and Biochemistry.  Through their intellectual leadership and service to the University, College, and their departments over a period of many years, both Galen and Gerry leave a rich legacy.  It was a great pleasure at both parties to hear testaments from many colleagues from across the University, and, in Galen’s case, across the state, of the high esteem in which they are held.  While they may be retiring formally, I look forward to their ongoing participation in the life of the College.

I’m very pleased to report that Dr. Patrick Kanold will be joining the Biology department as an assistant professor in Spring, 2007.  Dr. Kanold received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.  Since 2000, he has been a research fellow/postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Carla Shatz in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where he has been studying the mechanisms and circuits involved in the maturation of the cortical circuitry, development of patterned projection in the brain and the relation of synaptic maturation to critical periods, and development of the central auditory system. 

Two new staff members will be joining the Student Services office in the Dean’s Office.  Robin Griffin will be joining the College as an academic advisor and will also work with the Peer Mentor Program. Christina Boyd, a 2005 graduate of the College, will be joining the Dean’s staff as a graduate assistant.

The University has recently been informed that data collection for the next national review of Ph.D. programs by the National Research Council is scheduled to begin this summer and be completed by December.  Since there is no time to be lost, the Graduate Directors will begin working immediately with faculty, staff and students to prepare these data for submission. Dr. Arthur Popper will assist in and oversee these efforts in the Dean’s Office.  This study, conducted every 10 years, is critically important in terms of validating the quality of our programs.  Additional information can be found on the National Academies’ website at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/project_scope.html.

Norma Allewell
Professor and Dean

Nanotech Center Receives Funding from State

A Story in the June 8 Washington Business Journal, reported that the Maryland General Assembly’s legislative policy committee has approved a $3.65 million investment for the state’s NanoCenter at the University of Maryland.  Nanotechnology involves the development of devices at scales of less than 100 nanometers. 

31st Reaction Mechanisms Conference Held on Campus

Held every two years, the Reaction Mechanisms Conference was hosted this year by the University of Maryland and the Department of Chemistry.  The conference began on Tuesday, June 27 with dinner and opening remarks from Donald Aue of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Daniel Falvey, the conference organizer from the College’s Chemistry Department.  After three and a half packed days of presentations, the conference concluded with a reception in the G. Forrest Woods Atrium in the Chemistry Building.

Speakers included Nobel Laureate Robert Grubbs; Lawrence Sita, University of Maryland; Alanna Schepartz, Yale University; Rainer Herges, Universitat Kiel; Thorsten Rosner, Merck Research Laboratories, John Toscano, John Hopkins University.

Click here for a full list of speakers and the conference program.

Faculty News

Millard Alexander, Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, conducted the Pinhead Town Talk, Serendipity in Physical Chemistry:  How Discoveries Are Made, in Telluride, Colorado.  Alexander spoke of the serendipitous routes many significant scientific discoveries take.  Alexander’s own academic research involves the theoretical study of collisions between small atoms and molecules, and he has made major contributions to the understanding of how electrons influence the outcome of molecular encounters and reactions. He is the author of the Hibridon suite of computer codes for the study of inelastic molecular collisions.  The light-hearted "Pinhead" moniker for the town's lecture series is matched by Alexander's leisure time pursuits amidst the mountains.  "When he’s not doing science, Alexander’s interests veer close to Telluride’s heart – heli-skiing, canoeing, flying a single-engine Trinidad airplane, and windsurfing."  Read the full article in the Telluride Watch.

Dr. Caren Chang's research group, CBMG, published the discovery of a novel regulator of ethylene hormone signaling in the May 16 issue of PNAS. Their paper was highlighted in a Commentary Article in the same issue, and was one of several papers featured on the cover. The gene that they have identified affects ethylene signaling in plants by regulating ethylene receptor function. The gene is also conserved throughout organisms not known to possess ethylene receptors (animals and protists), thus opening the way for investigating the gene’s function in these other organisms.

Dr. Chang was one of two scientists elected this year to the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee. This eight-member committee serves as liaison between members of the Arabidopsis community and government and not-for-profit granting agencies, organizes and raises funds for the annual International Conference on Arabidopsis Research, and provides representation of the Arabidopsis community to various service facilities.

When downsizing is good. John Fourkas, Chemistry, was one of three featured guests on the internet radio program “Science and Society.” He talked about his latest research using lasers to create micromachines. Fourkas was also quoted in the Maryland Daily Record about the method that his research team has developed to mass-produce microscopic plastic parts for electronics and other equipment.  “'The hope is that is it going to allow us to make a whole new range of microscopic devices”

More information on Fourkas’s micro creations can be found at http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/micro/

William Jeffery, Biology, has received dual fellowships to continue his work at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole in the summer of 2006.  As a Laura and Arthur Colwin Endowed Research Fellow, he will continue his work on the evolutionary origin of the neural crest.  He has also been appointed as the Frederick A. and Betsy G. Bang Fellow, which will allow him to continue a new research program on the recruitment of stem cells changes in gene expression associated with siphon regeneration in the ascidian Ciona, a primitive chordate.  Jeffery was previously able to demonstrate that pigmented sensory organs at the edges of the siphons (see photograph) are capable of regeneration after the siphon is amputated.

The ascidian Ciona intestinalis showing yellow-edged siphons and red sensory organs.  The siphons and sensory organs can regenerate after amputation.

Results of research by Victor Muñoz, Chemistry and Biochemistry, that could help in preventing diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's were published in Nature and picked up by United Press International.  Muñoz initially observed that some proteins do not assume their biologically active states -- the process called folding -- in a single step, as had been thought, but that some fold and unfold gradually.  Now, in the June 15 online issue of the journal Nature, Muñoz presents evidence of the potential of his earlier observation. Using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, Muñoz and colleagues produced the equivalent of a sequence of snapshots of the protein folding process. He said the findings could change the way scientists look at proteins, the molecular nanomachines that perform most of the body's critical functions.

Margaret Palmer, Biology, will receive the 2006 Distinguished Service Citation by the Ecological Society of America (ESA).  This award is given to recognize long and distinguished service to ESA, to the larger scientific community, and to the larger purpose of ecology in public welfare. Palmer has chaired or participated in numerous committees and programs, including chairing the Society’s Ecological Visions Committee, which outlined the future of ESA.  Her work includes projects for the National Science Foundation on Women and Scientific Literacy, the Science Advisory Board for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and service on several editorial boards.

Researchers are working on developing vaccines for the avian influenza before it becomes a worldwide epidemic.  Daniel Perez, Affiliate Assistant Professor, CBMG, and Assistant Professor of virology, Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, however is unsure whether the vaccine, if proven effective, will stop a worldwide epidemic since bird flu viruses mutate, changing constantly.  An article on Voice of America, quotes Perez:  “The virus is completely unpredictable.  I think one of the biggest questions would be how many doses we have to make, how soon we have to have them, because if it [an epidemic] happens tomorrow, we don't have them,' warns Dr. Perez."  Perez is director of the $5 million USDA-funded avian influenza research project on campus, Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza in the U.S.

If it’s summer, then the bugs must be out.  And that means Mike Raupp, Entomology, is busy fielding questions. 

• On butterflies, Raupp was quoted in Scientific American: “[They] do their best to keep away from rain since it’s the equivalent of you or I being pelted by water balloons with twice the mass of bowling balls.”
• On ticks, the Annapolis Capital quotes Raupp with the warning that “Ticks are going to be on the way up.”  I’m seeing more ticks than I have in years.”
• When it comes to the picnic-buster mosquitos, Raupp talked with the local NBC station about bug sprays.
• The Washington Times printed an article for those people looking at bug-prevention methods.

James Reveal, Professor Emeritus, Biology, has been working with the Corcoran Gallery of Art in preparing a new exhibit of discoveries from the natural world recorded during the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark trek across the Northwest in the early 19th-century. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-lewis-and-clark-exhibit,0,7292.story

With the fear of a bird flu pandemic spreading, the scientific community is debating the benefits of making the latest genetic data public.  Steven L. Salzberg, director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, was quoted in a Washington Post article: “Science just moves more rapidly when you share the data openly.”  He said the chief fear is that one researcher will expropriate another's hard-earned data before the first can produce a scientific paper.  “It will happen, I can't deny it,” he said. “But the problem is that when you take that attitude with a public health matter, then you're essentially putting your scientific goals ahead of matters of the public.”

Salzberg has also been involved in the debate over patenting software.  Along with John Quackenbush of the department of biostatisticcs at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, he has been lobbying for legislative change.  Read more about this at Bioinformatics (Oxford Journals, UK).

New Research Funding :

William Fagan, Biology, received a $350,443 grant from NSF for his work on “GRASP: A Bioinformatics Database for Stoichio-Proteomics.”

John Fourkas, Chemistry & Biochemistry, received a $181,474 grant from NSF for his work “Probing Microscopic Structure and Dynamics in Complex Systems.”

Lyle Issacs, Chemistry & Biochemistry, received a grant for $80,000 from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund for his work on “The Inverted Cucurbit[n]uril Family.”

William Jeffery, Biology, received a new grant from NSF of $140,000 for his project entitled “Evolutionary Origin of the Neural Crest.”  The grant is for a period of three years with a total award of $420,000.

Arthur Popper, Biology, has received funding for four projects:

• PNL (Pacific Northwest Lab)  $150,000
• Marine Acoustics            $150,000
• Navy/DOD                     $526,698
• NIH/training grant, 13th year $237,281

Raymond St. Leger, Entomology, received a three-year $391,850 award from the
Biotechnology Risk Assessment Research Grant Program (BRAG) of the USDA. The project will provide an understanding, to the gene and genome level, of functions involved in spread, survival, rhizosphere competence, pathogenicity and other factors associated with environmental competence and potential uses of transgenic fungi.

Robert A. Walker, Chemistry & Biochemistry, received a grant for $166,640 from NSF for his work “Specific Solvation and Solvent Structure at Liquid Interfaces.” The purpose of the two projects under this grant is to further our understanding of solvent-solute interactions and solvent structure at a wide variety of liquid interfaces.  One project will develop new families of variable length molecular surfactants that include probes whose electronic and vibrational spectra are sensitive to hydrogen bonding.    These “molecular rulers” will be used in second order, nonlinear optical experiments to identify how and over what distances hydrogen bonding opportunities changes across weakly and strongly associating liquid/liquid and liquid/solid interfaces.  Complementing these studies will be a series of experiments that probe directly solvent structure at surfaces using surface specific, vibrational spectroscopy.

Student News

Holly Mortensen, PhD candidate in Biology, has been invited to participate the Wellcome Trust Advanced Course: Working with the HapMap. The course will be held at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus (July 31st-Aug 2nd) in Hixton, Cambridge UK. The Wellcome Trust Advanced Courses are advanced, residential, laboratory-based courses with the primary aim to facilitate research by providing scientists with 'hands-on' training in advanced, state-of-the-art research techniques, directly applicable to their current research interests.

Save the Date:

Each August, the Center for Teaching Excellence coordinates a campus-wide orientation program for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). This year’s Graduate Teaching Assistant Orientation will be held in Tydings Hall on Monday, August 28th, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. The Provost, Dean of the Graduate School, and Dean for Undergraduate Studies will address the new GTAs; faculty and exemplary GTAs will discuss what is expected of teachers of undergraduates and will answer GTAs’ questions about teaching; University staff will provide guidance about the legal and ethical issues GTAs may face as teachers; and GTAs will have opportunities to attend workshops on a variety of topics related to teaching and the GTA experience at the University. The Orientation program and sign up information can be found on the CTE website.

Dr. Maxine Singer will present a lecture on "Dover, Darwin, and DNA" as the Rajpat Lecturer on October 4. The lecture series is co-sponsored by the University Honors Program, College of Chemical and Life Sciences, and the Department of Resident Life. More details on the lecture will be available on the CLFS website at http://www.chemlife.umd.edu/news-events/calendar/index.html. Dr. Singer’s biography can be accessed at http://carnegieinstitution.org/singer/default.html

Beyond Peak Conference Making Headlines

The May “Peak Oil and the Environment” conference sponsored by the University of Maryland and organized by CONS graduate student Max Christian, hit the mark according to the Energy Bulletin.

According to the June 26 write-up, “For five years the peak oil movement has been largely the province of internet conspiracy buffs, church basement conferences and esoteric debates among petroleum geologists and scientists about statistical data few can understand. Last month, however, oil “peaksters” seemed to break out of their policy doldrums when they journeyed to the banks of the Potomac for what may have been their first mainstream conference in the nation's capital. For five years the peak oil movement has been largely the province of internet conspiracy buffs, church basement conferences and esoteric debates among petroleum geologists and scientists about statistical data few can understand. Last month, however, oil “peaksters” seemed to break out of their policy doldrums when they journeyed to the banks of the Potomac for what may have been their first mainstream conference in the nation's capital.”

Click here for the full article.

Gifts and Giving to the College

Gifts to the College included:

• Allan Will, $25,000 for an Entrepreneurship Course
• Nick Simon, $100,000 for Technology Transfer Support
  
• Evan Jones, $5,000 to the Dean’s Corporate Partnership Fund
  
• Herman Kraybill, $25,000 to support three Kraybill Fellows to be announced mid-July
  
• Calibrant Biosystems Corp., $40,000 in-kind experiments for David Mosser’s research

A special thank you to all who supported the College of Chemical and Life Sciences. Through your generosity we can help open doors for students for generations to come!

If you are interested in contributing or would like information about opportunities to support the College of Chemical and Life Sciences please contact Andrea Morris at aemorris@umd.edu or 301.405.4572.

Please visit the College Honor Roll to view the full list of donors.