department of chemistry university of pittsburgh ......hussam, today an associate professor of...

Depar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ry Un i ve r s i t y o f P i t t sbu rgh

www.chem.pitt.edu

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Issue 4Issue 4Issue 4Issue 4Issue 4Fall 2007Fall 2007Fall 2007Fall 2007Fall 2007

In This IssueIn This IssueIn This IssueIn This IssueIn This Issue

2 Staff Recognition: Lori Neu

3 Outstanding Alumni: Abul Hussam

4 Undergraduate Highlights

5 Phi Lamda Upsilon

6 Fund Raising Impact

8 Faculty Highlights: Dennis P. Curran

9 Faculty Updates

10 New Faculty

11 Department Milestones

12 In Memoriam

N e w s l e t t e rN e w s l e t t e rN e w s l e t t e rN e w s l e t t e rN e w s l e t t e r

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHDEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHDEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHDEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHDEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHCHEVRON SCIENCE CENTERCHEVRON SCIENCE CENTERCHEVRON SCIENCE CENTERCHEVRON SCIENCE CENTERCHEVRON SCIENCE CENTER

GREETINGSGREETINGSGREETINGSGREETINGSGREETINGSFROM THEFROM THEFROM THEFROM THEFROM THECHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIRCHAIRSince our last newsletter, the Chemistry

Department has continued to thrive andevolve. The scholarly and teaching ac-

tivities of our faculty remained strong over thepast year with 170 publications, and the grantingof 18 PhD degrees, 13 MS degrees, and 65 BSdegrees.

Our personnel changes this past year were fewas compared to the previous year. Our friend andcolleague Christian Schafmeister has moved onto Temple University, where he is an AssociateProfessor of Chemistry. In late August, Dr. GeoffHutchison joined our department as an AssistantProfessor; his expertise is materials chemistry,from both the experimental and theoretical per-spectives. We are also delighted to welcome SageBowser, a graduate of CMU, as our new NMRassistant. To our new colleagues we offer a warmwelcome and to those that have left us, we offerour best wishes for success and happiness in theirnew endeavors.

The graduate program remains strong with a sizeof 212 graduate students and 51 postdoctoral stu-dents. The excellence of the Department’s re-search program is a direct reflection of the highquality of its students and postdocs. The Depart-ment continues its active recruiting efforts and anew marketing brochure will be unveiled this year.The Fall 2007 graduate class is comprised of 39students, about half from the USA and half fromabroad. The Department is also active in grow-ing and improving the graduate program throughnew interdisciplinary efforts on campus; theseinclude the MD/PhD program, the MolecularBiophysics and Structural Biology program, andthe Computational Biology Program among oth-ers.

The undergraduate program remains exemplary.It has continued to earn external recognition col-lectively and through awards to our undergradu-ate majors individually. Currently we have 190declared majors in chemistry. Most of our ma-jors carry their education beyond the traditional

coursework and are active in research (72% ofthe 2007 class performed undergraduate re-search), teaching (37% of the 2007 class par-ticipated in the Undergraduates Teaching Under-graduates program), and service (59% of the 2007class participated in outreach activities). We arevery proud of the excellence, vitality, and workethic of our undergraduate students.

In this issue we recognize some of the achieve-ments of our entire Department from the under-graduate program through to the senior membersof our faculty. You will read a vignette about Jus-tin Baca, who recently received his PhD, and youwill read about our undergraduate researchers’ tripto Harrisburg. We are very pleased to highlightProfessor Dennis Curran. During the past year,his research was recognized for its excellenceby receiving multiple awards from the AmericanChemical Society.

We remain very proud of our alumni and theirachievements. On page 3, we feature AbulHussam, who received his PhD with JohannesCoetzee in 1982. Dr. Hussam has developed aninexpensive and user-friendly device to removearsenic from drinking water. His work has beeninternationally recognized by the award of the $1million Grainger Challenge Prize forSustainability. His innovation should have a pro-found impact on the quality of life in third worldcountries that are plagued by a lack of accessibledrinking water.

Our feature section on pages 6 and 7 describesthe various funds that were created through do-nations and are available for use by the Depart-ment of Chemistry. Pitt receives 12% of its fund-ing from the state, 30% from tuition, and 42%from external research funding. The remaining16% comes from donations and endowments.Such funds are essential to the Department forfunding special programs, providing financial as-sistance to students, and recognizing substantivestudent achievements. I hope that you will findthis article interesting as well.

We are very proud of all of the Department’scurrent members and of our alumni; as the ChairI am very pleased to present our annual newslet-ter to you.

Depar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryDepar tment o f Chemis t ryUn i ve r s i t y o f P i t t sbu rgh

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Staff Recognition: Glassblower Lori Neu Staff Recognition: Glassblower Lori Neu Staff Recognition: Glassblower Lori Neu Staff Recognition: Glassblower Lori Neu Staff Recognition: Glassblower Lori NeuLori Neu is one of a rare breed.

One of the newest employees in the chem-istry department, Neu has no advanced de-gree, yet is an esteemed and essential collabo-rator with researchers in chemistry, physics,engineering, medicine and more.

A scientific glassblower, Neu is one of a se-lect few with the specialized skills to fabricateand repair laboratory glassware. Her trade’sprofessional association, the American Scien-tific Glassblowers Society, counts only 616members worldwide.

Neu’s predecessor, Bob Greer, retired inDecember, leaving her as the University’s oneand only glassblower. In addition to servingthe needs of Pitt researchers, for a fee shefabricates and repairs scientific glassware for other institutions as well.

Because about half of her work is made up of fabricating custom pieces, trial and error plays arole as she devises glassware to meet a particular need.

“It’s kind of an art form for me,” she said, comparing her work to architecture. “I’m building outof the glass.”

Although she is the lone glass shop employee, Neu is a self-described people person and thriveson interacting with the scientists who will use her creations.

”I really enjoy the micro jobs,” she said, finding the tight tolerances required fascinating. One ofher memorable jobs was building an apparatus that needed to be airtight with openings for elec-trodes that measured only a fraction of a millimeter. The piece held a very small amount of liquidand a stir bar — a specially coated magnet that allows mixing solutions from outside a vessel —that was the size of a grain of rice.

Neu was exposed early to scientific glassblowing. A native of Carneys Point, N.J., she grew up inan area that, due to an abundance of silica sand, is a hotspot for glassmakers. It’s no accident thatCarneys Point also is home to Salem Community College, Neu’s alma mater, which offers thenation’s only scientific glassblowing degree program.

While their numbers are dwindling — there once were four dozen scientific glassblowers in thePittsburgh area but now Neu is the only one — Neu is convinced there always will be a niche forher increasingly rare skill.

While Neu has only been at Pitt a short time, she has big plans for the glass shop. She’s in theprocess of updating and reorganizing the shop and soon will be able to offer expanded capabilities.A drill press is being customized for her so she will be able to use diamond core drill bits to boreholes for her customers.

She also hopes to start a course to teach basic scientific glassblowing to chemistry departmentgraduate students, all of whom will need to have some glassblowing skills.

—Kimberly K. Barlow

Reprinted in part with permission of The University Times (Vol. 39, No. 12) www.pitt.edu/utimes/ut.html


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Outstanding Alumni: Abul HussamOutstanding Alumni: Abul HussamOutstanding Alumni: Abul HussamOutstanding Alumni: Abul HussamOutstanding Alumni: Abul Hussam

The Department is solic-iting nominations forChemistry DepartmentAlumni Awards. Nomi-nees should have abachelor’s, master’s ordoctoral degree from theDepartment. The basisfor the nomination can beexcellence in research,teaching, management,or volunteer efforts.Nominations should in-clude:

1. Your nominatingletter

2. At least one but nomore than three second-ing letters

3. A CV for the nominee

4. Contact informationfor the nominee

Please see the alumnisection of our Web page at

http://www.chem.pitt.edufor more information

Nominations should beposted by

December 1, 2007to:

Assistant ChairDept. of Chemistry

University of PittsburghPittsburgh PA 15260

CALLCALLCALLCALLCALLFORFORFORFORFOR

NOMINATIONSNOMINATIONSNOMINATIONSNOMINATIONSNOMINATIONS

le

Pitt Alumnus Receives $1 Million Prize for Filter ThatRemoves Arsenic From Drinking Water

A simple, inexpensive fil-ter that removes arsenicfrom drinking water haswon its inventor, Pitt alum-nus Abul Hussam, the $1million Grainger ChallengePrize for Sustainability.

The device, called theSONO filter, is saving livesin Hussam’s nativeBangladesh.

Hussam said he nevercould have created the de-vice—which purifies water through a series of sand, wood,brick, and iron composite filters—without the knowledgeof analytical chemistry he acquired as a doctoral studenthere.

Hussam, today an associate professor of chemistry andbiochemistry at George Mason University, earned his PhDdegree in analytical chemistry at Pitt in 1982.

While at Pitt, Hussam became adept at trace analysis, orfinding minute traces of substances in water. That skillwould come in handy in the late 1990s, when Hussam’sbrother, a physician in their hometown of Kushtia,Bangladesh, shared with Hussam his suspicion that someof his patients were suffering from arsenic poisoning.

The only way for Hussam to know whether arsenic wascausing the symptoms his brother was seeing in his pa-tients—painful skin nodules, liver problems, and weak-ness—was to measure its concentration in water samples.That represented the first step in building the SONO filter.Once Hussam knew the level of arsenic in groundwater,he could design a filter powerful enough to eliminate thepoisonous mineral. Drawing on his studies at Pitt, Hussamdeveloped a device for measuring arsenic and found thatmany of the wells he tested— including two he had drunkfrom while growing up—contained three-to-40 times themaximum amount of arsenic considered safe.

Hussam said the analytical chemistry he learned whilestudying at Pitt under his doctoral advisor, Johannes Coetzee,currently an emeritus professor, and coadvisor Stephen We-ber, a Pitt professor of bioanalytical chemistry, was “abso-lutely essential” to developing the SONO filter.

After leaving Pitt, Hussam had lost touch with his advis-ers. But soon after The Washington Post published a storyabout his award-winning invention, Hussam received aphone call from a man who asked him detailed questionsabout trace analysis. Hussam did not catch the caller’sname at first.

“He asked me, ‘What was the species of arsenic I hadfound in the water?’” Hussam recalled.“And I thought thatthis person really knew what he was talking about becausevery few people ask me that question. “Asked to mail thecaller copies of his research papers, Hussam began takingdown the man’s name and address. As the caller spelledhis name— Johannes Coetzee—Hussam realized he wasspeaking with his former adviser.

“It was a very pleasant surprise when I read the articleabout Abul,” said Coetzee, who retired in 1989 after 37years at Pitt and now lives near Washington, D.C. “Whenwe talked, he said it was the best day of his life. I wasdelighted.”

Coetzee added, “I’m not shocked that Abul created theSONO filter, because he certainly had the ability. His filteris a major contribution to science and to the welfare ofBangladeshis. I think he can be a role model for youngchemists. He applied the knowledge from his doctoral stud-ies to a practical matter of great importance. You may have1,000 people with Abul’s competence, but only one willmake a great achievement.”

For Hussam, reconnecting with Coetzee brought backhappy memories of the U.S. city and campus he had cometo love in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Pittsburgh was the first American city Hussam lived in—his “hometown America,” he calls it. His wife, MeherunNahar, graduated from Pitt in 1983 with a master’s degreein chemistry; she also studied under Professor Weber,Hussam said. Their son was born in Pittsburgh.

“ I tell my best students to go to Pitt, because the facili-ties and education are superb. What I learned at Pitt helpedme tremendously. I was fortunate to work with the top sci-entists in analytical chemistry.”

The Grainger Challenge Prize was created in 2005 tospur the development of arsenic filters that would be simpleand affordable (no electricity required, for example) andwithin the manufacturing capabilities of developing coun-tries. The competition was sponsored and administered bythe National Academy of Engineering and the Illinois basedGrainger Foundation, which supports efficient and globallybeneficial innovations in engineering.

Hussam said he has set aside 70 percent of his $1 millionprize to fund further development and distribution of theSONO filter. His goal is to produce 1,000 of the handmadedevices each week. The cost of the filter’s plastic casingdrives the price to about $40. As of this year, 30,000 of thefilters have been distributed in Bangladesh, 20,000 of thosefor free, he said. One SONO filter purifies enough waterin two hours to serve the daily needs of a family of five,according to Hussam.

Several American communities have contacted him aboutthe SONO filter. Groundwater in parts of the United States,particularly in northern states such as Minnesota and theDakotas, contain a significant amount of arsenic, he noted.But a new filter must be developed for American house-holds to accommodate the stronger water flow producedby indoor plumbing, said Hussam, who is using some of hisGrainger prize money to fund research at George MasonUniversity on an arsenic filter for industrialized countries.“I thought my work [on the SONO filter] was over,”

Hussam said, “but it seems that it has just begun.”—Morgan Kelly

This article originally appeared in the summer 2007 issue ofReserch Review. It has been edited for length and used withpermission.


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Pitt Day in Harrisburg: Excellence in UndergraduatePitt Day in Harrisburg: Excellence in UndergraduatePitt Day in Harrisburg: Excellence in UndergraduatePitt Day in Harrisburg: Excellence in UndergraduatePitt Day in Harrisburg: Excellence in UndergraduateResearch - 20 March 2007Research - 20 March 2007Research - 20 March 2007Research - 20 March 2007Research - 20 March 2007

2007UndergraduateSenior Awards

The Merck AwardEric A. High

Brad A. Lentz

The Silverman PrizeNancy A. Lalanne

The American Institute ofChemists AwardMelissa A. Forry

The SACP College AwardLilly Roy

The Mary Louise TheodorePrize

Gregory J. AdamczykThaddeus T. Boron, III

Megan L. FriendEric A. High

Craig K. KozminskiNeil A. Robertson

The Phillips MedalAndrew S. Petit

Zachary D. Pozun

2006 Chemistry Graduates

ACS-Student Affiliate CornerACS-Student Affiliate CornerACS-Student Affiliate CornerACS-Student Affiliate CornerACS-Student Affiliate Corner

The annual Pitt Day in Harrisburg is orga-nized by the Pitt Alumni Association. This year13 undergraduate researchers (10 from the Oak-land campus and 1 each from the Johnstown,Bradford, andGreensburg cam-puses) volunteeredto showcase theiroriginal researchand creative effortsto Pennsylvaniastate legislators. Afourteenth poster summarized undergraduate re-search across all schools on the Oakland cam-pus. Upon arrival and after a short briefing,the students set up their posters in the Rotundawhere any passersby could stop and read them.Later in the afternoon, the posters were movedaround the corner to the atrium where theChancellor’s speech and the formal receptionoccurred. While this annual event has beenoccurring for at least 14 years, this is the first

time it has been focused on showcasing Under-graduate Research. After lunch and before thereception/poster session, the undergraduates vis-ited legislators or their aides in their offices forappointments ar-ranged by Pitt’sGovernmenta lRelations office.

Displays sum-marized the con-tribution that un-dergraduate stu-dents from the Chemistry Department contrib-uted to the 2007 event. The profiles of the threestudents (which they handed out to legislators inlieu of business cards) are displayed, as are theagenda, the Alumni Association’s web page, sev-eral pictures, and a 11" x 8.5" version of eachstudent’s poster. On a rotating basis, about ev-ery two weeks, the 4’ x 3’ poster of the threeChemistry-affiliated students will be displayed.

On April 29, 2007 our department celebratedour graduating seniors’ achievements with a rec-ognition ceremony and brunch for our graduatesand their families. Dr. Adrian Michael congratu-lated the graduates on behalf of the Departmentand each student received a small gift to mark

their special day. The ACS-SA Senior AffairsCommittee did a great job of planning and coor-dinating this special event.

On August 27, 2007 a brand new academic yearbegan in Chevron. After a quiet August, it isgreat to have the Ashe lobby once again filledwith students. The sounds of education - lectur-ers at the blackboard, students working on home-work problems and classes coming and going -have once again returned. We are so happy towelcome all the new and returning students toour department.


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Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU)Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU)Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU)Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU)Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU)

2006-07 Novartis Fellowship

Awardee

2007-08 Mellon Fellowship

Awardees

2006-2007 Graduate Student Fellows

American Chemical SocietyJoshua PierceBenjamin Stevens

Baranger AwardMelissa Sprachman

Bayer FellowshipSruti Bhaumik

Frederick KaufmannFellowshipBrett Allen

Goldblatt FellowshipByong-Kyu ShinJia Luo

Graduate Excellence FellowsJung-hyun PuhKristi O’NealRoman IvanovXiao WangZhongyu Yang

Hurd Safford GraduateTeaching AwardsMark AmsLeonardo AlvarezValerie McCarthyKeith MoquinChad ShadeByong-Kyu ShinRyan StayshichJessica Thomas

K. Leroy IrvisDiego Valencia

Lauren Ashe FellowsOlukorede AgustoCarl BrunettaMelissa BurgerMarshall ChakrinDezhi FuKristina GehringJames HaleAmy HamsherBradley HutnickHannah KaczkaMatthew Kofke

Melissa LiberatoreTamika MadisonCain MoranoJaren MorettiGeorge NortonSami OsmanAdam RosenbergElizabeth SangerSalvatore SpagnaMelissa SprachmanDiego ValenciaThomas VargoKiley WhiteAn-Hung YehJustin YoungZhongfeng Zuo

Warga FellowsHannah KaczkaElizabeth Sanger

Provost’s AwardSalvatore SpagnaAmy Hamsher

Sunoco FellowshipRyan Bird

Phi Lambda Upsilon (PLU) is a National HonoraryChemistry Society founded with the purpose of pro-moting high scholarship and original investigation inall branches of pure and applied chemistry. The Uni-versity of Pittsburgh represents the Xi chapter ofPLU with its foundation in 1917.

In the 2006-2007 academic year, PLU organized anumber of social and academic events for the Chem-istry Department including the annual new graduatestudent picnic in August and the annual Holiday partyin December. Our biggest event is planning theFrancis Clifford Phillips Lecture, which is the long-est running graduate chemistry lecture series orga-nized by graduate students. Although the PhillipsLecture is typically held in the spring semester, ourinvited speaker, Dr. Chad Mirkin of NorthwesternUniversity representing the Inorganic Chemistry di-vision, will give two lectures on October 16th and 17th

of 2007 due to scheduling conflicts. Dr. Mirkin isone of the leading researchers in the nanotechnologyfield. Following Dr. Mirkin’s talks in the fall, we lookforward to the 53rd Phillips Lecture, which will be

held from January 24-25 of 2008. Our lecturerwill be Dr. X. Sunney Xie of Harvard Universityrepresenting the Analytical Division.

Keeping with the tradition of previous years, inthe 2007-2008 academic year we are again plan-ning events welcoming the incoming graduate stu-dents and other various academic and social eventsfor the Chemistry Department.

Our elected officers for the 2007-2008 yearare:

President – Chad Shade (Third Year)Vice-President – Diane Mitchell (Fifth Year)Treasurer – Julia Varga (Third Year)Secretary – Jessica Sarver (Third Year)

We look forward to the 2007-2008 academicyear and are excited about the new opportunities,which will hopefully help better serve the gradu-ate students and the Department.

Hui Fang

Maceiej Walczak

Michael Green


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The Department of Chemistry and FundraisingThe Department of Chemistry and FundraisingThe Department of Chemistry and FundraisingThe Department of Chemistry and FundraisingThe Department of Chemistry and FundraisingWhere do you want to make an impact?Where do you want to make an impact?Where do you want to make an impact?Where do you want to make an impact?Where do you want to make an impact?

Attached to every newsletter that we havepublished, you may have noticed an enve-lope wherein we request donations for thebenefit of the Department of Chemistry.Fundraising (or development) is an essen-tial ingredient for the Department’s successand has a direct impact on our students.

Often those that decide to create a fund ordecide to contribute to an existing fund, doso for very personal reasons. Nevertheless,some general groupings can be made. Forexample, alumni of the Department’s under-graduate program may feel very stronglyabout how the Department’s faculty and pro-grams impacted their lives and thereforechoose to contribute to funds that directlyimpact the undergraduate program. Alterna-tively, we have those alumni who weregraduate students in our program and havegone on to successful careers in education,government or industry that choose to con-tribute to funds which have direct impact onthe graduate program. A third group of friendsand alumni simply contribute to general fundsso that we may earmark proceeds to some ofour most pressing needs. Over the past twoyears, we have participated in “targeted” de-velopment campaigns to impact very specificareas. In 2006, we decided to target the un-dergraduate analytical labs to upgrade instru-mentation that was old and out of date. The2006 campaign netted nearly $15,000. Bymatching this amount with other Departmentof Chemistry funds, we were able to pur-chase two rebuilt gas chromatographs andsome spectrophotometers. In 2007, we em-barked on a smaller targeted campaign toraise funds to supplement the endowment forthe Phillips Prize. The 2007 campaignbrought several warm messages from former

awardees and a much deeper appreciationfor what our awards and honors mean to ouralumni. Donations to this effort continue toarrive.

You may not be aware that the Departmentof Chemistry manages over twenty endow-ment and gift funds. These various endow-ment and gift funds are in some cases gen-eral in their intended use while others aretargeted for specific departmental activitiesand awards. The Table on the next page sum-marizes some of these individual endowmentand gift accounts that are used to benefit ourstudents within the Department of Chemis-try.

The reason for providing you with this in-formation is to express our gratitude to thosewho have donated and continue to donate tothe Department. As you can plainly see, it isyour choice as to where you would like tomake an impact on the Department of Chem-istry.

As always, if we can offer any specific as-sistance or answer any of questions pleasedo not hesitate to contact us.

We are very interested inhearing about the accom-plishments of our alumni andformer colleagues in the De-partment of Chemistry. Ifyou have news to shareplease complete the top por-tion of the enclosed enve-lope or contact MicheleMonaco by telephone (412-624-8200) or e-mail([email protected]) so thatwe can share your informa-tion with the rest of our read-ers. The information that youprovide to us will be includedin future mailings or on theDepartmental website.

We are looking forward to

hearing from you!

InformationInformationInformationInformationInformationpleasepleasepleasepleaseplease


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FUND NAME INTENDED USE

Ashe Memorial Fund

Averill Endowment

Basu Endowment

Dunkelberger Memorial Fund

Kaufman Memorial Fund

Goldblatt Endowment

Phillips Prize Endowment

Joseph Rothermel Fund

Michael Strem Family Fund

Mary Louise Theodore Fund

Michael Neely Walker Fund

Richard F. Zarilla Fund

L. Dennis McKeever Fund

J. Daniel Bode Fund

Rossi Scholarship Fund

DeWitt C. Clapp Endowment

Chemistry Annual Giving Fund

Rex Shepherd Memorial Fund

Undergraduate Teaching Endowment

Support for general research and study in theDepartment of Chemistry.

Support for undergraduate scholarship.

Fellowship for outstanding post-comprehensivegraduate student.

Cash award for outstanding academic achievementby a sophomore or junior undergraduate student.

Support for the annual Kaufman Lectures and a fel-lowship to a new graduate student.

A fund to support graduate student research.

Cash award and medal for the outstanding Chemis-try senior undergraduate.

Provides financial support for graduate students toattend national meetings.

Provides scholarships to outstanding undergradu-ate students.

Provides unrestricted financial support for the ben-efit of the Department of Chemistry.

Provides financial support to undergraduate studentswith high academic standing.

Effective 2010, this fund will be used to supportundergraduate research efforts.

Financial support to graduate students honored withthe “Professor Hurd Safford Teaching Award”.

Provides two annual scholarships to outstanding un-dergraduate students.

This endowment supports the UTU (UndergraduatesTeaching Undergraduates) program.

Created to support graduate students and to fund afuture seminar series.

This general fund provides monies for activities thatbenefit the Department of Chemistry.

This endowment provides unrestricted funds to ben-efit the Department of Chemistry.

Financial support to graduate students honored withthe “Professor Hurd Safford Teaching Award”.


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Faculty Highlights:Faculty Highlights:Faculty Highlights:Faculty Highlights:Faculty Highlights:Dennis P. Curran, Bayer Professor and DistinguishedDennis P. Curran, Bayer Professor and DistinguishedDennis P. Curran, Bayer Professor and DistinguishedDennis P. Curran, Bayer Professor and DistinguishedDennis P. Curran, Bayer Professor and DistinguishedService Professor of ChemistryService Professor of ChemistryService Professor of ChemistryService Professor of ChemistryService Professor of Chemistry

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now has about a dozen full time employees andsells fluorous products to the chemical and bio-logical communities.

Beyond these commercialization projects, thevast majority of our ongoing work is best classi-fied as basic research. We are learning how wellwe can make natural product stereoisomer li-braries by fluorous mixture synthesis, discover-ing the ins and outs of asymmetric reactions ofaxially chiral amides, and looking into new ana-logs of the macrocyclic anticancer agentdictyostatin. The force motif behind all our workis a cadre of enthusiastic students and postdocs.

Modern organic synthesis is an enabling disci-pline for many enterprises, including drug dis-covery. Our longstanding interest in cascaderadical reactions evolved in unexpected direc-tions when we discovered that silyl analogs ofcamptothecins (so called “silatecans”) werepowerful anti-tumor agents. After a long andexciting roller coaster ride through pre-clinicaldevelopment, one of our silatecans, DB-67, hasrecently entered a Phase I clinical trial for can-cer chemotherapy at the University of Kentucky.

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synthesized in 10 steps, >98% ee

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Synthesizing drug candidates is not the onlyway to contribute to drug discovery. Methodsfor fluorous synthesis and separation, developedin our group, have proven to be very useful inboth traditional and parallel synthesis settings.Recently, these methods have been pushed be-yond small molecule chemistry for applicationslike biomolecule synthesis and even proteomics.

In the early days, fluorous chemistry seemedslow to catch on, especially in industry. To fa-cilitate uptake, we founded Fluorous Technolo-gies, Inc (FTI). This thriving small companyfocused on research and development of cut-ting edge new technologies and products.


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Faculty Updates:Faculty Updates:Faculty Updates:Faculty Updates:Faculty Updates:Faculty NuggetsFaculty NuggetsFaculty NuggetsFaculty NuggetsFaculty Nuggets

Shigeru Amemiya received an NSF CA-REER Award.

Sandy Asher won the Pittsburgh Spectros-copy Award and was named a Fellow of theSociety of Applied Spectroscopy.

George Bandik received the OutstandingProfessor Award from Fraternities and So-rorities.

Kay Brummond was the 2007 Recipient ofthe Carnegie Science Center Award forEmerging Female Scientist, was named the2006 recipient of the ACS Akron SectionAward, and in November of 2006 was pro-moted to Full Professor.

Dennis Curran was named the Blaise Pas-cal International Research Chair, Prefecturede la Region D’Ile-de-France (Paris) 2007-2008. In addition, he received the 2nd Inter-national Society of Fluorous Technology(ISOFT) Award, 2007 (shared with JohnGladysz), The Pittsburgh Award, PittsburghSection, and the ACS Morley Medal, Cleve-land Section, ACS.

Ken Jordan was promoted to DistinguishedProfessor of Computational Chemistry andwas also named an AAAS Fellow.

Kaz Koide received the 2007 Thieme Chem-istry Journal Award.

Adrian Michael was co-chair of the 2006Gordon Research Conference onBioanalytical Sensors and is chair-elect ofthe SACP for 2007. In addition, he edited abook entitled “Electrochemical Methods forNeuroscience, Vol. I, published by CRC“Frontiers in Neuroengineering”.

Scott Nelson was the 2006 Bristol-MyersSquibb Lecturer at Princeton University.

David Pratt is the chair for the Gordon Re-search Conference on Biological Moleculesin the Gas Phase, 2007. He also was electedto an honorary membership in Phi BetaKappa.

Peter Siska’s textbook, entitled “UniversityChemistry”, was published by Pearson Ben-jamin Cummings this year.

Megan Spence received the 2007 Ralph E.Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awardand was a recipient of the 2006 Eli LillyAnalytical Chemistry Grant.

Alex Star received the Thieme ChemistryJournal Award, 2006 and Who’s Who in Sci-ence and Engineering, 2006-2007.

Michael Trakselis was chosen for an NIHMentoring Workshop for Junior Faculty.

John Yates was the winner of the ACS 2007Peter Debye Award in Experimental or Theo-retical Physical Chemistry. He, along withKarl Johnson, published a textbook entitled“Molecular Physical Chemistry for Engi-neers”.

CMMS Open House

Ted Cohen50-Year

Career Celebration

Retirement ofJohn T. Yates, Jr.


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New Faculty:New Faculty:New Faculty:New Faculty:New Faculty:

Sage BowserNMR Assistant

Joel R. Gillespie

Materials and Nanoscale Chemistry. Com-putational Materials Design. Rational De-sign and Materials Synthesis. Electronic Ma-terials. Nanoscale Dynamics.

Our group will develop new materials, aswell as microscale and nanoscale functionaldevices literally from the bottom up. We fo-cus on building electronic materials from mo-lecular subunits, both organic and inorganic,using a variety of techniques to rationally de-sign the desired properties. This encompasseschemical synthesis, characterization (bothphysical and chemical), combined with theo-retical modeling and simulation. Topics cur-rently of interest include single moleculesprings and molecular piezoelectric materi-als, nanoscale and microscale transistor de-sign and behavior, and reversible surface self-assembly.

Geoff’s undergraduate degree is from Will-iams College, his Ph.D. is from NorthwesternUniversity, where he studied with Prof. TobinJ. Marks and Mark. A Ratner, and he didpostdoctoral research at Cornell Universitywith Prof. Héctor D. Abruña. His wife is aveterinarian.

Geoffrey Hutchison

Carol FortneyAnalytical and

Instrumental Analysis

Lab Coordinator

Manager, Materials CharacterizationLaboratory (MCL), Eberly Hall.

In addition to setting up and managing thisnew departmental instrumentation facility,Dr. Gillespie will also serve as a liaison toother university facilities including thePetersen Institute of Nano-Science and En-gineering (PINSE), providing user trainingas well as advice on experimental capabili-ties, experiment design, and data analysis.

Dr. Gillespie is a native of Virginia andreceived his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistryfrom the Johns Hopkins University Schoolof Medicine in Baltimore, MD. After post-doctoral training at the University of Cali-fornia and Stanford University, he joined thefaculty of the Virginia Bioinformatics Insti-tute (VBI), a public research institution onthe campus of Virginia Tech, where his ad-mittedly eclectic research interests includedthe design of protein-based biomaterials andsensors for biological threat agents.


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Department Milestones:Department Milestones:Department Milestones:Department Milestones:Department Milestones:Bodie Douglas

Barbara Svitek

Each year, according to the National Heart, Lung,and Blood Institute (NHLBI), more than a millionpeople in the United States have heart attacks andmore than half of them die. One of the contribut-ing factors to the sobering statistics is the fact thatmany victims do not receive the emergency treat-ment and intervention they need quickly enoughto save their lives. Justin Baca, a University ofPittsburgh MD/PhD candidate, is working tochange that.

Baca, who graduated from Harvard University in2001 with undergraduate degrees in chemistry andphysics, is engaged in research that he hopes willenable emergency medical technicians, emer-gency room physicians, and other first respond-ers to detect almost immediately decreased oxy-gen flow to the heart and begin administeringproper care within minutes instead of hours.

As a student in the MD/PhD program, Baca spenthis first two years at the University of Pittsburghenrolled in preclinical coursework in the medicalschool and completing the first of his eight clini-cal clerkships. Now he is in his fourth and finalyear of the PhD program in the Department ofChemistry. Once he completes his doctorate, hewill return to medical school for two more years,where he plans to finish his clinical training andgraduate in 2009. During their summers, MD/PhDstudents complete research rotations. On top ofthat, Baca has been spending an average of fivehours each week shadowing an emergency medi-cine physician at UPMC Children’s Hospital.

“Right now, I’m considering emergency medi-cine as a career, but most medical students figureout what they plan to specialize in during their thirdyear of medical school, so I may change my minda few times,” Baca says laughing.

At this spring’s com-mencement, many Arts andSciences professors couldbe found draping hoods overthe heads of their newlyminted PhDs.

But it is likely that onlyone of them was hooding an advisee nearly 50 yearsafter his first.

Though Bodie Douglas, professor emeritus in theDepartment of Chemistry, retired in 1989, he remainsan active member of the department’s graduate faculty.So when Carol Fortney, a PhD student whose researchwas in inorganic chemistry—Douglas’s field—was inneed of an advisor, Douglas stepped up.

His long career in chemistry began when he was ateenager and was interrupted only by his service in theU.S. Navy during World War II.

Douglas enrolled at Tulane University at only 15years of age. He was one course shy of graduation whenhe enlisted in Midshipmen’s School at Columbia Uni-versity. Still, he was allowed to graduate, in absentia,with his class at Tulane the same month he was com-missioned.

After he came home from the war, he married hissweetheart, Gladys Backstrom. They had their firstchild in New Orleans, and he completed his master’sdegree in chemistry at Tulane in 1947. Then he movedto the University of Illinois, where he received his PhDin 1949.

He got a teaching position at the Pennsylvania StateCollege (now University), and came to Pitt in 1952.He enjoyed teaching immensely and still can be foundin his Chevron office enthusiastically showing a visi-tor the varied forms of crystalline molecules on hiscomputer screen.

In 1985, he had a heart attack and had to have a qua-druple bypass. Then, last year, he had chest pains andhad a stent put in. But he still swims four times a week.“It’s very important to me to make my heart work hard,”he says.

An inveterate traveler, Douglas has visited 64 coun-tries. Even now, at 82, he continues to travel. He wasin Serbia this summer to give talks and visit friends.The main message he has learned from his travels :“Once you get to know them, all people are verymuch alike.”

Justin Baca

—Carol MullenDirector of Communications, School of Arts and Sciences

This article originally appeared in the summer 2007 issue ofthe School of Arts and Sciences newsletter, Snapshot. It hasbeen edited for length and used with permission.

—Karen HoffmanManager of Strategic Communications, School of Arts and SciencesThis article originally appeared in the summer 2007 issue of the Schoolof Arts and Sciences newsletter, Snapshot. It has been edited forlength and used with permission.

Many of you will remem-ber the smiling face of BarbSvitek as your first experi-ence upon entering theChemistry Department’smain office. Barb hasserved as the ChemistryDepartment receptionist forthe past 21 years. At theend of this year she plansto retire and move to Bos-ton, near her grandchildren.We wish her many smilesand much joy as she beginsthis new stage of her life.


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Nonprofit OrgU.S. PostagePAIDPermit No. 511Pittsburgh, PA

Department of Chemistry234 Chevron Science CenterPittsburgh, PA 15260

www.chem.pitt.edu

Address Service RequestedAddress Service RequestedAddress Service RequestedAddress Service RequestedAddress Service Requested

In Memoriam:In Memoriam:In Memoriam:In Memoriam:In Memoriam:Clifford E. Neubeck, PhD (BSChemistry 1939) graduated from the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh with a BS in Chemistry and aPhD in biochemistry in 1943. He passed away onJanuary 20, 2007. He was born in Erie, PA on No-vember 6, 1917. He married in 1943 and had eightchildren, 19 grandchildren and 2 great grandchil-dren. He was employed by Rohm and Haas Co. from1943 until 1982 as a biochemist involved in the pro-duction and application of microbial industrial en-zymes. His main interest was in the field ofpectinases (fruit extract enzyme for the creation ofjellies). He retired from Rohm and Haas in 1982as the head of the enzyme lab. At that time the en-zyme department of Rohm and Haas was discontin-ued and the assets sold to Genecor (now GenecorInternational), a new company formed to produceand market industrial enzymes. He became a con-sultant for the new company for eight years. Hewas an emeritus member of the American Chemi-cal Society.

He is survived by sons James, John, and Kenneth;and daughters Margaret Bergey, Elaine Heywood,Gloria Graver, and Anita Armstrong. His wife diedin 1993 and his daughter Karen Brady in 1987.

Paul C. Lauterbur (PhD Chemistry1962) shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiol-ogy or Medicine for his part in developing magneticresonance imaging (MRI), died March 29, 2007. Hewas 77. Most recently a professor at the Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lauterbur earnedhis Ph.D. degree in chemistry at Pitt in 1962. Pitt’schemistry department, in the School of Arts and Sci-ences, named Lauterbur among the inaugural groupof distinguished alumni in 2000 at the department’s125th anniversary celebration. Lauterbur won theNobel Prize with Sir Peter Mansfield of the Uni-versity of Nottingham in England for research thatled to the development of MRI, a noninvasive tech-nique that uses a magnet to generate images of theinside of an object. MRI is largely used in medi-cine. Lauterbur delivered the keynote speech atPitt’s 2004 commencement ceremony where Chan-cellor Mark A. Nordenberg conferred upon him theHonorary Doctor of Science degree. In his com-mencement address, Lauterbur discussed fleshingout his idea of observing organs through noninvasiveimages in a local diner and that techniques he learnedin a graduate course at Pitt convinced him that theidea was possible.

department of chemistry university of pittsburgh ......hussam, today an associate professor of...

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