Students Present their Summer Research in Indianapolis

Photo courtesy of Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence (LSMRCE), a project funded by NSF HRD-1826626 (IUPUI) and HRD-1826719 (CSU).

The Louis Stokes Midwest Regional Center of Excellence 2019 Annual Conference was held this year in Indianapolis during October 25-27. Students from IU South Bend researching in the STEM fields of biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, and physics attended this conference to showcase posters describing their summer research - most of which was funded by the LSAMP program coordinated on our campus by analytical chemist Grace Muna.  She and ecologist Deb Marr(also director of our sustainability program) accompanied our hard-working students at the conference. The summer research experience and opportunity to present their work is a valuable experience that will help to elevate our students' resumes for graduate school and industry. Here is a list of the students and their research titles.  You can read abstracts of their work HERE.

Ebenezer Pacifique Barinda (Computer Science, with Hossein Hakimzadeh )
Hybrid Parcel Services (HPS): Application to Improve Courier Services

Grace Berney (Biological Science, with Murli Nair)
Understanding molecular signatures associated with IPS cells and their cell of origin

Humberto Chavarria (Chemistry, at Biosphere 2)
Biosphere 2: The Changes of Soil Composition and Properties in Time in the Rainforest Biome

Angel Garcia-Simental (Physics, with Jerry Hinnefeld)
St. George Detector Simulation

Alexia Glasper (Biochemistry, with Deb Marr)
Effect of Antidepressant Drugs on Aquatic Plants and Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria Isolated from Nectar

Brianna Jones (Chemistry, with Grace Muna)
Phenolic Compounds and Mineral Content Determination in Organic and Conventional Blueberries: A Comparison Stud

Patricia Medrano (Biological Science, with Andy Schnabel)
Pollinator diversity, pollen limitation, and nectar microbial divers

Christopher Mochel (Chemistry, with Grace Muna)
Method Development for Detection of Aminothiols in Biological Samples

Amber Owens (Biological Science, with Deb Marr)
The effect of paroxetine, an SSRI drug, on Gammarus, a freshwater crustacean

Andrew Vila (Biological Science, with Grace Muna)
Optimization of Bismuth Deposition Conditions on Glassy Carbon Electrode for Detecting Lead in Water and Soil Samples

Chemistry Week

This past week our department celebrated National Chemistry Week.  Mole Day was on Wednesday October 23 (10/23) as usual and those who woke up early were able to celebrate at 6:02 AM as well as 6:02 PM.  Professor Rizk’s upper-level biochemistry lecture went outside to illustrate just how large is Avogadro’s number (nearly one trillion trillion) which tells how many units are in one mole of a substance. A tablespoon (14.8 mL) of water is about one mole of water.  This means that there are close to one trillion trillion water molecules held in that tablespoon.  The tablespoon itself (around 300 g) would be about 3 moles of silver - or nearly 3 trillion trillion silver atoms if it were made of pure silver.

On Friday at noon, the newest faculty member of our department gave the second talk in this year’s Dean’s Seminar Series. Professor Clear’s talk was titled Approaches and Application for Synthetic Lipid Receptors and he gave the audience an introduction to the goals and methods of his past and planned research. Although Clear is pressed for time in his first semester with a new teaching load and advising responsibilities, he has already attracted students to his research in his organic chemistry group. In the evening, the faculty and some students officially welcomed Clear to the university with a dinner party at LangLab.

National Chemistry Week ended with hands-on mini-experiments for kids on Saturday at the River Park Branch Public Library. Students from the IUSB Biology and Chemistry Club once again volunteered their valuable time to foster scientific interest in the younger generation. 

 

Is Graduate School Right For You?

Professor and Biochemist, Shahir Rizk, is presenting his annual talk "So you want to go to graduate school, eh?".  Attendance is a must for anyone interested in graduate school - and a good idea for anyone who isn't sure what they want to do when they graduate.  After four (or more) years of supporting yourself through undergraduate school, you may be surprised to learn that graduate schools pay tuition for their PhD students - as well as offer a stipend for living expenses.  The talk is on Tuesday, October 15, at 5:00 in the afternoon in NS 125.

 

 

Faculty Present in Bloomington and Indianapolis

 

Pictured above is Grace Muna (center) with two IU Kokomo faculty members while at Bloomington’s symposium on Undergraduate Research and Capstone Experiences on September 20. The focus of the symposium was on the implementation of  Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) and panelists (Muna was one) were given about five minutes each to speak about the state of undergraduate research at their campus. Muna shared about the LSAMP and SMART programs that support our students to do research over the summer. The invited speaker, Sarah E. Brownell, from Arizona State University has done a lot of research on CUREs and she shared on the benefits students get from CUREs and ways to incorporate CUREs in courses. Muna plans to incorporate CUREs during the last three weeks of her course CHEM-C 410 Instrumental Analysis to give the students an opportunity to apply what they have learned during the semester to solve a particular analytical problem.

Just two days prior, Shahir Rizk (below) attended the IU Innovation and Commercialization Conference at IUPUI. Rizk was invited to attend based on his recent work developing a fluorescent biosensor for detecting the herbicide glyphosate. (Perhaps you've seen commercials encouraging viewers to participate in a class-action lawsuit against the company that produces Round-Up [brand name for glyphosate] alleging that the herbicide contributed to cancer.)  Rizk is currently pursing a patent for his group's biosensor.

 

 

Student Returns from Summer Research Experience

Humberto Chavarria is a chemistry major at IU South Bend who was selected to participate in a competitive, paid REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) this past summer funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 research facility.  Although he will graduate at the end of this academic year as chemistry major, Chavarria intends to pursue a graduate degree in geology.  The two fields are not unrelated as the determination of the chemical composition of soils and rocks is very important and can tell scientists a great deal about the environment's geological history and future potential. Chavarria describes his research experience in the following paragraph.

"For 10 weeks, I got to spend my time in Oracle and Tucson, Arizona to do research for the University of Arizona at the Biosphere 2 facility along with 12 other students from around the country. Biosphere 2 is an earth science research facility that currently houses 7 biomes, each closed and controlled, including a tropical rainforest, mangrove wetlands, fog desert, and an ocean with a coral reef. My research project was on the soils used in the rainforest biome. The Biosphere could not get real rainforest soils due to the pricing, shipping restrictions, and disposal requirements, so the crew decided to create their own mixture of soil using local desert soil, sand, pumice, peat, and several other organic materials. My partner and I analyzed the soils to determine if they were changing to mimic real rainforest soils. We measured pH levels and electrical conductivity and finished with a cation exchange capacity procedure. We then compared the data to previous data collected to find any trends and then presented our results at the Desert Museum for the public and once again at the UROC convention for the university. My research impacts the Biosphere by giving future researchers necessary information for future projects such as a drought experiment in the rainforest biome. Other current projects that are being worked at Biosphere 2 include possibilities and strategies to revive coral reefs and agrivoltaics, and the technique of utilizing the same plots of land for both solar energy and agriculture, which is currently showing promising results."

The Biology-Chemistry Club Transitions to the New Academic Year

The Biology-Chemistry Club ended the summer with their second community outreach event: "Space Slime" at the LaSalle Public Library on the first of August for an hour in the afternoon. Their first event at River Park branch earlier in the summer was so successful that they engaged children with many of the same activities such as moon painting, a microscope for kids to look at rocks through, as well as letting them make glitter slime.

 

But now the club members are setting their sites on the new academic year and their first event was for the campus with a Semester Kickoff Party on Thursday at the LangLab on High Street, South Bend where pizza served as the catalyst for students and faculty to catch up on what has happened over the summer months. We are excited to see what plans the club has for rest of the year - particularly for National Chemistry Week in October with the theme "Marvelous Metals"!

Alumnus Kasey Clear is our New Organic Chemist

 

Professor Kasey Clear is our new organic chemist starting this fall, but he is no stranger to IU South Bend or teaching organic chemistry. Clear graduated from our campus in 2011 with a B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Biological Sciences. In 2016, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame for his dissertation on synthetic sensors for biomembrane molecular recognition.

 

Clear then secured a teaching position as an assistant professor at Murray State University in Kentucky from 2016-2019. He primarily taught the standard two-semester organic chemistry sequence and a one-semester organic chemistry overview course, but he also taught a graduate-level organic chemistry course and introductory chemistry during this time. Clear also mentored ten undergraduate researchers in organic synthesis and anion recognition projects. Many of these students have presented their research at regional and national chemistry meetings, and several students have since moved on to chemistry and biochemistry Ph.D. programs, professional schools, and jobs in the chemical workforce. Clear's research program is in the area of supramolecular and bioorganic chemistry. In this, he designs and synthesizes organic molecules that bind to and act as sensors for biological molecules, particularly lipids. He will continue research on a sensor for a signaling lipid and begin work on a new synthetic receptor for the allergenic components in poison ivy and poison oak plants.

Outside of his academic pursuits, Clear enjoys time outdoors appreciating nature and all manner of creative endeavors including cooking, knitting, quilting, sewing, playing bass guitar and keyboard, and singing with his family's local music group, the Clear Family Singers. Sometimes these creative activities creep into his teaching when he decides to rewrite song lyrics (e.g. Bromine in the Jar, There Are Many Ways to React Alkenes) and poetry (e.g. Mercaptan, Mercaptan!) to illustrate chemistry concepts.

 

Clear loved his time as a student at IU South Bend and has many wonderful memories. He especially enjoyed working as supplemental instruction leader, tutor, and science team leader in the Academic Center for Excellence. But one of his favorite memories was Dr. Anderson's words of warning regarding potential future research subjects: namely, avoid studying lipids or anything anaerobic! He inadvertently forgot the first piece of advice before it was too late, but fortunately he has come to really enjoy studying lipids. 

 

Kasey is very excited to be back in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and a part of the IU South Bend community!