Rizk and Fink publish protein book

The Color of North is the first book publication by a faculty member of our department. Our biochemistry professor, Dr. Shahir Rizk, spearheaded this general-audience project on proteins which combined his efforts (largely on a year-long sabbatical) with those of Dr. Maggie Fink while she was working toward her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Notre Dame. To write a book together, these two must obviously have a lot in common, but you may be surprised that they are both alumni of IU South Bend (Rizk, B.S. Biology; Fink, B.S. Biochemistry) and are actually both teaching here (Rizk, Assistant Professor; Fink, adjunct instructor). Their book is ready for pre-order and will be available for delivery in May. The following excerpt is taken from its listing at Amazon.com.  I'm very much looking forward to reading their book.

Taking us beyond the confines of our own experiences, The Color of North traverses the kingdom of life to uncover the myriad ways that proteins shape us and all organisms on the planet. Inside every cell, a tight-knit community of millions of proteins skillfully contort into unique shapes to give fireflies their ghostly glow, enable the octopus to see predators with its skin, and make humans fall in love. Collectively, proteins orchestrate the intricate relationships within ecosystems and forge the trajectory of life. And yet, nature has exploited just a fraction of their immense potential. Shahir Rizk and Maggie Fink show how breathtaking advances in protein engineering are expanding on nature’s repertoire, introducing proteins that can detect environmental pollutants, capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and treat diseases from cancer to COVID-19.

Weaving together themes of memory, migration, and family with cutting-edge research, The Color of North unveils a molecular world in which proteins are the pulsing heart of life. Ultimately, we gain a new appreciation for our intimate connections to the world around us and a deeper understanding of ourselves.

Dr. Grace Muna wins campus teaching award

This morning Grace Muna was presented with this year's campus-wide Distinguished Teaching Award along with cowinner David Blouin from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. She is pictured above with her plaque with Dean McMillen of the College of Arts and Sciences. Muna regularly teaches our second-semester general chemistry lecture, both general chemistry labs, and the upper-level analytical chemistry and instrumental analysis lecture/lab combination courses. Students appreciate Muna's sincere concern for them that has motivated many students to rise up from a poor start. Muna also insists on hand-graded homework which many students claim has helped them more so than online homework systems. In addition to her teaching role, Muna regularly involves students in her research projects and serves as the director for our campus's LSAMP program which provides funding from the National Science Foundation to minority students for summer research positions on campus mentored by our faculty. The last chemist who won this award was Gretchen Anderson in 1996. Congratulations, Dr. Muna!

Wanted: Octet Violators

Earlier this semester, freshman biology major Emma-Leigh Sheaks Osborn drew these wanted posters, perhaps to help warn her fellow classmates about these troublesome elements on one of their tests. Both boron (B) and beryllium (Be) are uncommon elements in early chemistry courses, but they do make a notable appearance when we study Lewis structures for their atypical bonding patterns in which they prefer to have fewer than an octet of valence electrons in molecular compounds. Emma-Leigh has a knack for both drawing and science and helps to liven up chemistry discussion class with good questions. Thanks for the drawings!

2024 Garber Research Fellowship Winners

Pictured above are chemistry major, Luke Johnson (left), presenting a poster at a research conference in Chicago and biochemistry major, Morgan Underdue (right), working in the lab. Both students were supported this past summer with the generous Carolyn and Lawrence Garber Research Fellowship.

 

Underdue worked with biochemistry professor Dr. Rizk during the summer to develop biosensors for amino acids. He used an engineering approach to convert some proteins for bacteria into powerful detectors for the presence of essential nutrients like glutamic acid and aspartic acid. These amino acids are used by bacteria as food sources to grow. The project is part of a collaboration with the University of Notre Dame to understand how different bacteria selectively consume different food sources. By using the biosensors developed by Underdue, scientists are able to monitor the consumption of nutrients by bacteria in real-time, offering insight into bacterial metabolism and how they can cause disease.

Johnson worked with analytical chemistry professor Dr. Muna during the summer to prepare and test an electrochemical method to detect metabolites of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress, an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants within the body, is common in many diseases like cancer and heart disease. The compound 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) results from nitration mediated by reactive nitrogen species such as the peroxynitrite anion and nitrogen dioxide which result from oxidative stress. 3-NT has been identified as a biomarker for cell damage, inflammation, as well as nitric oxide production. Therefore, its monitoring is important for disease monitoring. An electrochemical biosensor platform was prepared by modifying a gold electrode with N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) ester gold nanoparticles.  The NHS ester gold nanoparticles created a monolayer on the electrode surface which was used to covalently immobilize 3-NT antibodies. The modified electrode surface was then used for the detection of 3-NT using cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry techniques. 

Professor Bill Feighery's Sabbatical Research

This fall semester, our inorganic chemist, Dr. Bill Feighery, is working in the Jaffe Lab at the University of Notre Dame. The research involves two-dimensional layered metal cyanide materials referred to as Hofmann clathrates. These compounds feature alternating square planar metal cation centers (typically Ni, Pd, Pt) and octahedral centers (such as Fe, Co, Ni). The goal is to incorporate atom transfer molecules thereby forming a hybrid material that can be subsequently subjected to stimuli to induce formal atom transfer. 

IUSB Chemistry/Biochemistry research in the news

As usual, our research labs were bustling with activity and students this summer. Undergraduates from various majors - and even a few high school students - worked as analytical chemists, synthetic chemists, biochemists, engineers, and even computer programmers in the labs of Professors Kasey Clear, Grace Muna, and Shahir Rizk. The unusual bit was that research in our department seemed to be all over the news this summer on WSBT (channel 22). First there was a Hometown Living interview with Professor Shahir Rizk and then there was a two-part series as part of Operation Education. The latter featured Biological Sciences major Elizabeth Hayes and Biochemistry major Alissa Sonnenberg talking about their research and goals. Sonnenberg is pictured above in a still shot captured from the second video link of the WSBT broadcast. Please check out and share these three exciting, informative, and short news items using the links below. 

Hometown Living interview 

Operation Education: Important summer research happening on quiet IU South Bend campus

Operation Education: Women still underrepresented in STEM fields

In Honor of Instructor Clark Hartford

As the fall semester nears, our department must continue without the aid of our beloved adjunct instructor, Clark Hartford, who passed away in May. Hartford taught in our department for over 20 years in courses ranging from the freshman level for both science and non-science majors to advanced analytical chemistry for our majors. He taught year-round, including the summer, sometimes teaching multiple sections of a class. For the past few years Hartford had been teaching the freshman-level introductory chemistry laboratory taken mostly by pre-nursing majors. 

The picture above shows Hartford at about 75 years old, but he taught his last class this spring at 91 years old, literally working until the end. He was planning to teach for us again this fall. Hartford truly cared for his students as evidenced by his eagerness to meet students outside of class and accommodate those who missed an experiment. He was not content to let a student slide by or fail. Like all our adjunct instructors, Hartford played a vital role in our department. To honor his memory our department awarded a one-time scholarship to the last chemistry major who he taught this past year, Alexandra Ibarra. To learn more about instructor Clark Hartford 's amazing life, please read his obituary.