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!

Summer Research in the Rizk Lab

Biochemist Shahir Rizk has had a very busy summer. He is pictured above presenting his work on Reversible Self-Assembly of Bio-Responsive Nanostructures at the 2019 Cottrell Scholar Conference in Tucson, Arizona in early July. Rizk was announced as a Cottrell Scholar earlier this year in Science Magazine and IU produced a nice video segment on his research and goals. More recently, Rizk returned from the National Environmental Monitoring Conference in Jaksonville, Florida in early August where he presented work on Engineering a Biosensor for the Herbicide Glyphosate. One of our adjunct professors, Earl Hansen, and his wife, organize this conference each year. They are pictured with Rizk below.

In between his busy conference schedule, Rizk has been mentoring three student researchers in his laboratory: chemistry major Ashley Catanzarite, biochemistry major Audrey Doue, and biology major Joel Green. Catanzarite won this year's Carolyn & Lawrence Garber Summer Research Fellowship.  Doue won the Zeider Excellence in Biochemistry Scholarship and also was funded by a SMART grant for her research experience.

Recently, Chancellor Elrod paid the Rizk lab a visit and met with the students. A geneticist herself, Chancellor Elrod (right) had a chance to learn about the research on protein engineering in the Rizk lab from students Ashley Catanzarite (second from left) and Joel Green (left). 

 

Alumna Success Story

Congratulations to Alexandra Hochstetler (left) who was recently accepted to the IU Medical School  along with her sister (right).  Alexandra is an award-winning graduate of our department. She earned her B.S. degree in biochemistry in 2017. Hochstetler describes her postgraduate experience below. We are so proud of you, Alexandra, and hope that you and your sister both have a wonderful experience in medical school.

"Between my bachelors degree and medical school, I continued working as a research technician in the Schwarz lab at Harper Cancer Research Institute following my experience the previous summer as RC MedReview Fellowship recipient. I later made the decision to move to Indianapolis and began working at Eli Lilly as a contractor while studying for the MCAT. The science labs and lectures at IU South Bend (specifically biochemistry and molecular biology) as well as the summer research experiences offered at IU South Bend, provided me with invaluable hands-on experience, which gave me an edge over the other applicants in order to secure my position at Lilly. As I continued studying for the MCAT, I never felt like any of the information was foreign or that I needed to relearn subjects because the science courses offered at IUSB were directly applicable to the information on the MCAT. My younger sister and I applied to medical school together and were both accepted! This summer before school started, I took Dr. Anderson’s advice and took a Victory Vacation to celebrate! As I reflect during my first week of medical school about my journey to this point, I definitely could not have done it without my professors and mentors from IU South Bend! They were always supportive of my crazy ideas, answered millions of questions, and helped guide me to where I am now."