Mole Day Party

To many chemists, the number that is approximately 6.02x10^23 may be more recognizable as Avogadro's number used in the definition of the SI unit mole than the small mammal pictured here. This number has been translated to the date 10/23 and time 6:02 to mark a celebration of chemistry.  

The Biology and Chemistry Club has reserved SAC 225 from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM for food, fun, and games on that notable Sunday this month.   All students and faculty are invited to join the celebration.

Students present research at undergraduate conference

Students Abdullah Almayouf and Tyler Krause were two of several chemistry and biochemistry majors who tackled research projects this past summer. This pair teamed up with mathematics major Doan Le for a computational study of the Schrodinger equation under the guidance of Professor Marmorino.

The group introduced a parameter (for optimization) into the Temple formula used to calculate lower bounds to ground-state energies of atomic and molecular systems. Last Friday, Abdullah and Tyler presented this research at the Midwestern Symposium on Undergraduate Research in Chemistry held at Michigan State University.  Just a week earlier they were notified that their work had been accepted for publication in the Journal of Mathematical Chemistry.  Congratulations Abdullah, Tyler, and Doan!

Alumnus Shahir Rizk engineers protein nanoswitches

After graduating from IU South Bend with a biology major and chemistry minor, Shahir Rizk earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2006 from the Duke University School of Medicine.  Rizk now works as a postdoctoral fellow for Professor Anthony Kossiakoff at the University of Chicago in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 

As part of our intermittent Chemistry Right Now seminar series, Rizk will discuss how he and his colleagues attempt to engineer conformational changes that allow a protein to serve as a molecular on-off switch.   His talk Engineering Nanoswitches to Control Protein Structure and Function will be presented in Northside Hall 113 at 4:00 P.M. on Monday, October 10.