Research in the Muna Laboratory

Undergraduate research has come to a close for a couple of months now that the campus has shifted to online operations in an effort to de-densify the campus to ward off the effects of the pandemic. Chemistry majors Naseem Alfadhl (left) and Valeria Robles Madrigal (right) worked with analytical chemist Dr. Muna this semester continuing work they had started in the summer during the pandemic lockdown. Although they were kept out of the laboratory this summer, they were not idle; they conducted many literature searches and evaluations of electroanalytical techniques, methods, and data interpretation used in the detection of electroactive analytes. Finally, this fall they had an opportunity to explore in the laboratory those chemical concepts they had learned over the summer. 

Both students spent the fall semester developing and applying the technique of electrochemically depositing metallic nanostructures on glassy electrodes which are then used to detect particular types of analytes contaminating water samples. Their focus was to quantify the effect that the deposition time has on the electrochemical behavior of the coating of the glassy electrodes due to the different nanostructures that result from whether the deposition occurred quickly or slowly. Valeria investigated the metal bismuth (the heaviest of the non-radioactive elements) which leads to detectors suitable for detecting lead ions in aqueous solution. Naseem worked with gold which has a special affinity for thiols (the sulfur analog of an alcohol), particular aminothiols.

Brenda Beatty is a Covid Superstar

This week Brenda Beatty was declared a Covid Superstar for her tireless and cheerful work this semester. Beatty is the only laboratory assistant in our department and performs the set-up and take-down of all the freshman and organic laboratories each week. She has been working with us for about 15 years and we have very much enjoyed the excellent work she has done and continues to do. In early August she prepared all of the materials for use in the filming of the CHEM-C121, C125, and C126 experiments for our online offering of C121 and backup plans for C125 and C126. Much of her effort this fall has been the redesign and expansion of the layout of stock chemicals, equipment, and waste containers in the laboratories to let each student work independently (rather than with a partner) and not have to move around the lab so that students can maintain a 6-foot distance from each other at all times.  For more information, please view her story in the Daily Titan.

Alumna Maggie Fink Presents Research at Webinar

2020 Biochemistry graduate Maggie Fink is presenting research that she conducted with Dr. Shahir Rizk and fellow 2020 Biological Sciences graduate Emmanuel N'Guetta. Their work was published a few months ago in Protein Engineering Design and Selection. Their article was selected as an Editor's Choice article and they were invited to discuss it in tomorrow's webinar (Click here to join). Both Fink and N'Guetta are in the second year of their Ph.D. programs at the University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, respectively. This is a great honor for the Rizk lab and we are especially proud of Fink and N'Guetta who worked so hard and enthusiastically for several semesters with Rizk. Their dedication has been rewarded with a patent, a published article, and now this honor.  Congratulations!

Students Present at Annual LSAMP Conference

On Saturday ten of our students attended the annual LSAMP Conference for STEM research conducted by minority students. This year the conference was organized by Ball State University - and although it was virtual because of the pandemic, it was still a great success. Students particularly enjoyed the captivating story of NASA researcher and astronaut Leland Melvin. 

Three of our summer LSAMP scholars presented virtual posters.

Valeria Madrigal (pictured first) with mentor Dr. Muna (Chemistry)
Investigating the Effect of Bismuth Deposition Time on Bismuth Modified Electrodes Performance in Detecting Lead

Keith Taylor (pictured second) with mentor Dr. Marr (Sustainability and Biology)
Pollinator Diversity And Microbial Diversity In Nectar In Urban Wetland

Luis Rodriquez (pictured third) with mentor Dr. Hinnefeld (Physics)
Spectra of Variable Emission Star Gamma Cassiopeiae

In addition, E-Lexus Thornton (pictured fourth), a former IU South Bend LSAMP scholar and physics major, was one of the panelists in the Indiana LSAMP Alumni Panel. Thornton was recently accepted by the NSF LSAMP Bridge Program to begin a doctorate program in mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky this fall.  Congratulations, E-Lexus!  You can find more information about E-Lexus and our presenters here at the conference website.

New Instruments in the Clear Lab

Assistant professor Kasey Clear is our newest faculty member.  He joined the department in the fall of 2019 and quickly began to set up his laboratory for research. Clear found that he was missing a few things, but he was able to obtain them this year.  

Column Chromatography System (on the left)

Clear's January purchase of the blue Biotage Isolera One allows for automated column chromatography. It mixes solvents to change elution gradients, has a UV detector to create a chromatogram, and it also has a fraction collector! Biology major Danielle Voss used this device to purify reaction products in her urushiol synthesis in Clear's lab. Urushiol is the "poison" in poison ivy.

Freeze Dryer (in the middle)

At the start of the fall semester the Clear lab obtained a VirTis Lyophilizer which is used in combination with a freezer to remove water from a sample. Rather than boil or evaporate water from a sample, the sample is first frozen and then pressure and heat from the lyophilizer causes the frozen water to sublimate directly to gaseous form to dehydrate the sample. The cryobath (from Professor Bill Feighery) standing to the right of the Lyophilizer is used to freeze the samples before they are loaded onto the lyophilizer. Chemistry major Sabrah Alajmi used it many times during the fall semester to remove water from the products of polyallyamine guanylation reactions to isolate the polyallyamine-polyallylguanidine copolymer. 

Vacuum Oven (on the right)

Clear also purchased a Fisher Scientific Vacuum Oven with the freeze dryer. They arrived together during the first week of fall classes in a single crate that nearly took up the entire hallway! His group will use the oven to prepare polymer networks in future work. 

Rizk and Students Publish Research

Professor Shahir Rizk has published research in the Journal of Protein Engineering, Design, and Selection. This work was performed with two undergraduates, biology major Pierre N'Guetta and biochemistry major Maggie Fink, who have both since graduated and are now attending graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Notre Dame, respectively, in pursuit of their Ph.D. degree. The picture above, taken from their paper, shows the conformational change in a protein caused by the binding of glyphosate.  The structure of a protein (or any molecule) determines its properties so that a change in structure causes a change in its properties. In this case the binding of glyphosate to the protein causes a change in the way the protein fluoresces which translates into a signal indicating the presence of glyphosate.  You can read the abstract here: Abstract

Summer Research in the Rizk Lab

Even though the COVID-19 shutdown pushed the whole campus online, summer research in the Rizk lab did not stop. Instead, the students worked with Dr. Rizk to adjust their research to a virtual experience. Together, the students worked on computational modeling of protein assemblies, learned how to read and present articles, and met regularly through weekly zoom lab meetings. 

Senior Biochemistry majors Brody Deming (top right), Michael Dean-Laffin (bottom left), and Jordan Harriman (bottom right) received SMART grants for their summer research. Brody used the software Chimera to model the interactions of sugar binding proteins that form nanostructures. Michael used a number of modeling tools as well as 3D-printing to construct models of self-assembling nanostructures based on bacteriophages, viruses which infect bacteria. Jordan used modeling to redesign a bacterial protein for the detection and monitoring of environmental pollutants. 

Sophomore biology major Rose Inchauregui (middle) and junior Biochemistry major Catherine Duselis (top left) collaborated on constructing conformation-specific reagents for developing glucose biosensors. Rose received funding from the LSAMP program supporting underrepresented minorities in STEM and Catherine received work-study support through the Cottrell Scholar's Award grant.  

Back to School

We hope you are all safe from Covid-19 and all the social and economic problems that have arisen because of it.  We encourage you to consider returning to school this fall, but please talk to your advisor to make sure this is the right decision for you. We recognize that some students will need time off. Many classes will be offered online this fall semester, but there are still in-person classes on campus and some of the online classes will have live lectures to simulate in-person lectures.  Stay healthy and strong!

Promotion to Full Professor

Our physical chemist's most recent move was that of his office library to his home for the stay-at-home order toward the end of the spring semester. But Professor Marmorino had a much bigger move at the beginning of the past fall semester when he took the role of chairperson for the department. In fact, this academic year has been very nice to Marmorino with a promotion to full professor and a Trustee's Teaching Award, both in the spring semester. He has tough acts to follow as chair, however, as for the past 18 years either Professor Feighery or Anderson has been chair and they were experienced professionals in this capacity. Adapting the department to teaching in online format and with social distancing guidelines this summer and upcoming fall semester is only possible with the combined effort of the entire department. We have a great group of full-time and adjunct faculty with excellent support staff in the laboratory and our campus's information technology center. While the pandemic is making education a challenge, we are trying out best to turn the challenge into an opportunity.  

2020 Graduates and Awards

Congratulations to all of our graduates this year! It is disappointing that we cannot celebrate together in a commencement ceremony, but such ceremonies are just the icing on the cake - and it is the substance of the cake that is most important. Your hard work for the past four (or more) years has paid off with your degree which will open doors to employment and graduate studies.

A shout of praise also goes out to the numerous students in our department and classes who won awards this spring and scholarships for next year. In particular we want to mention Precious-Gold Akpadija and David Aupperle as our first winners of the new Gretchen Anderson Pathways Scholarship in honor of our late department chair and biochemist, Dr. Gretchen Anderson.

Freshman Chemistry Achievement Award
   Hasan Alsaymary
   Melyse Ishimwe
ACS Undergraduate Analytical Chemistry Award
   Andrea Valadez
Undergraduate Award in Organic Chemistry
   Kyle Geller
Student Excellence Award in Biochemistry
   Frederique Audrey Tchinty Doue
   Joel Green
Student Excellence Award in Chemistry
   Humberto Chavarria
   Andrea Valadez
Joseph H. Ross Seminar Award
   Joel Green
George Nazaroff Scholarship
   Brianna Jones
   Naseem Alfadhl
Gretchen Anderson Pathways Scholarship
   Precious-Gold Akpadija
   David Aupperle
Carolyn & Lawrence Garber Summer Research Scholarship
   Naseem Alfadhl

Connie Fox wins Outstanding CLAS Staff Member Award

Last week Connie Fox was awarded the 2020 Outstanding CLAS Staff Member Award. As the only full-time professional staff member in our department, she is recognized as the final authority on laboratory safety, waste disposal, chemical inventory, and supply orders. Fox has been laboratory director since 1984 and has served the university longer than any of the current full-time faculty members – however, her history with IU goes back further.  In 1978 she received her undergraduate degree in chemistry (B.A.) at IU South Bend and then headed to Northwestern to earn a graduate degree in chemistry (M.S.) in 1980. Fox was an exceptional student at IU South Bend and won both the Senior Excellence award and Analytical Chemistry award that we still offer to students to this day.  Fox is incredibly well-respected on campus; her colleagues and students note her experience, knowledge, foresight, sharpness, and fairness. While chemists don’t typically have much naval inclination, different faculty have both used ships to describe Fox, calling her the ‘engine that drives the department’ and the ‘hull that keeps us afloat’.  Another commented “when I first interviewed at IU South Bend for my faculty position, I wrote in my notes that Connie Fox is the person who runs the department. There is no question that she still does.” We all fear the day of her retirement knowing that it will take years for her replacement to fill even one of her shoes. Congratulations on this award; it is well-deserved!

Patent Pending for Rizk's Glyphosate Biosensor

Professor Shahir Rizk and his students have developed a biosensor for the herbicide glyphosate (RoundUp). This work, which started in the research-based biochemistry lab course (CHEM-C 486) taken by all of our biochemistry majors, was followed up by two IU South Bend students who are now at PhD programs at UNC-Chapel Hill and Notre Dame. A patent application was filed back in the summer of 2019. Read more about Rizk's research and patent here.

Glyphosate is a very simple molecule - almost just the combination of glycine (the smallest amino acid) and a phosphate group. It is a very widely-use herbicide and owes part of its success to the genetic engineering of glyphosate-resistant crops so that the herbicide attacks only the weeds. However, in recent years, glyphosate has been classified as a probable human carcinogen.

Adjunct Faculty Recognized for Years of Service

Our department relies heavily on adjunct faculty from the community to teach our students due to our limited number of full-time faculty.  We are extremely grateful for their willingness to teach, their expertise, and their dedication to IU South Bend. Three instructors are being recognized this spring for service milestones. Instructors Merilee Britt (freshman chemistry and laboratories) and Jim Noffsinger (organic laboratory) have each taught 15 years for us while Earl Hansen (freshman chemistry and laboratories) has taught on campus for 10 years. Although secretly they each may wish they had taken this semester off due to the stress of moving classes online for the latter third of the semester due to the coronavirus pandemic, none of them are reluctant to do their best to adapt and help others. Over spring break, Britt filmed laboratory director Connie Fox perform freshman laboratory experiments for the students to watch instead of perform. And Hansen recorded short pre-laboratory video lectures (partial screenshot above) for the instructors of the CHEM-C 121 courses who don't have recording capabilities at home. We have a great group of students in our department - and one of the reasons for that is that we have a great group of faculty. Thanks to all of the adjuncts for supporting our department and IU South Bend.

Moving Labs Online

The coronavirus threat has nearly closed our campus and spring break has been extended one week to allow instructors time to adapt to teaching their lecture courses online for the rest of the semester. But what about laboratory classes? Laboratory Director Connie Fox came up with the solution to videotape someone performing the remaining experiments. So during spring break, Laboratory Assistant Brenda Beatty prepared the chemicals for each experiment and then the dynamic duo of Fox (as experimenter and narrator) and adjunct instructor Merilee Britt  (as camerawoman) took over and performed one experiment after another with help from adjunct instructor Clark Hartford on a few experiments. In just a few days of extraordinary effort they processed about ten experiments to handle the last month in our C121, C125, and C126 laboratory courses. This week, Professor Kasey Clear is following their example to deal with the remainder of his organic chemistry laboratory. Moving to all online courses has been - and will continue to be - a difficult task for both faculty and students. Thanks to everyone for their patience and diligence.

Chemistry major presents at two conferences

Chemistry major Brianna Jones was awarded an LSAMP grant this past summer to research with Professor Grace Muna for eight weeks. Jones used our MP-AES (microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometer) to analyze the mineral and organic content of blueberries to determine whether there were significant differences between organic and typical blueberries.  Last fall she presented her conclusions and discussed her methods at a conference in Indianapolis with several other students, but in just the last week Jones attended two conferences in Chicago to further disseminate her research. Pictured left is Jones at the 2020 Illinois LSAMP Symposium and to the right she is shown at Pittcon 2020. It is great to see students like Jones excited about their research and eager to tell others about the hard, but rewarding, work they have done. The abstract of her work is given below.

Phenolic Compounds and Mineral Content Determination in Organic

and Conventional Blueberries: A Comparison Study

Brianna Jones and Grace Muna

Blueberries have high level of antioxidants compared to other fruits and vegetables due to their phenolic content. However, many people wonder if organic blueberries are actually healthier than conventional blueberries. To investigate the nutritional differences a Folin-Ciocalteu reagent was used to develop a method to determine the phenolic content. A microwave plasma emission spectroscopy method was also developed to determine the mineral content. Results show that conventional and organic blueberries contain relatively the same amount of phenolic compounds. In addition, among the minerals tested, sodium, zinc, magnesium, calcium, copper and potassium, organic and convention blueberries compares very well, with exception of  calcium and potassium which was found to be slightly high in organic blueberries. Results from the phenolic and mineral content determination will be presented.

Professor Muna Appears on our Campus Homepage

Professor Grace Muna and chemistry student Reem Salous currently (Feb 27, 2020) grace the homepage of our campus website at www.iusb.edu.  This picture was taken last semester during Muna's advanced laboratory course CHEM-C 410 Principles of Chemical Instrumentation. That semester she traded in some traditional laboratory experiments for a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in which students acquired soil samples from their yards to test for lead content using microwave plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. The student response to this variation of the laboratory was overwhelmingly positive.  Muna has an active research lab with students sponsored by SMART grants, LSAMP grants, and work-study funds; she also manages the LSAMP program for STEM students on our campus. The photograph was taken by Peter Ringenberg - that's a tough picture to get, from inside the ventilation hood!

Rizk to Lecture at Pop-Up University

The fall semester introduced IU South Bend's Pop-Up University to the community and it was an outstanding success. The first Pop-Up University lecture of the spring semester will be How to survive being frozen solid and other illustrated science stories by Shahir Rizk, who will use art and personal stories to communicate scientific discoveries on how organisms use molecular machines to thrive in their environments. He will talk about fish-made shark repellents, frogs surviving the northern winters, and bears preventing muscle damage during hibernation. Rizk will also discuss how some molecules give animals extra-human senses. Please join us for this engaging discussion and enjoy a beverage with good company.

Publication in the Journal of Mathematical Chemistry

Marmorino's last sabbatical work was just published in the 2020 January issue of the Journal of Mathematical Chemistry.  The article titled Upper and Lower Bounds to Atomic Radial Position Moments describes the computation of tight upper and lower bounds to radial position moments of electrons in the helium atom.  While radial position moments are not the most glamorous of quantum observables - and the helium atom is rather dull compared to other atoms and molecules - this work is important because it makes progress in our ability to rigorously bound atomic and molecular properties. All of the current commercial computational methods approximate the structure and properties of atoms and molecules without providing rigorous error estimates of the data that is reported. You can find the article at this website, although access may be restricted if you are not using a university computer.