photochromic materials for PPG's polycarbonate eye glass lenses. Such materials became the basis of Transi-tions® eyeglasses. Crano was an active member of the Akron Section for many years. The lectureship is funded by PPG Inc., and the local sec-tion of the ACS is currently working to establish an en-dowment for future lectures. Details on how to contribute can be found on the Akron Section ACS website, http://www.akronacs.org/.now

As this year’s Crano Award Lecturer, Dr. Mathew Platz of Ohio State University pre-sented “Ultrafast Time Re-solved Studies of Reactive Intermediates” to the depart-ment April 16. He also of-fered an evening talk, entitled “Development of a Photo-chemical Technology to Re-duce Pathogens in Platelet Transfusions,” at Walsh Uni-versity in North Canton.

Currently Distinguished Uni-versity Professor of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Biological, Mathematical and Physical Sciences at OSU, Platz had served as Dr. David Modarelli’s post-doctoral advisor.

Platz is well known for his use of ultrafast laser spectroscopy to study the structure and reactivity of intermediate car-benes, nitrenes, and other

reactive species in organic chemistry. His talk centered on the formation and reactivity of carbenes and nitrenes gen-erated from electronically ex-cited state molecules. He discussed how the products of the reactions of the carbenes and nitrenes were determined by the electronically excited state from which the interme-diates were generated by bond cleavage.

The Crano lectures memorial-ize Dr. John Crano, a chemist at PPG who had been instru-mental in developing the

Dr. Matthew Platz Presents 2009 Crano Lecture

Chemistry Department Hosts Project SEED Students The department will again host several local high school students this summer as part of the ACS Project SEED Program. ACS fully funded the application —- to the tune of $31,000 —- through the Akron Section-ACS, which will support six returning stu-dents and four first-year stu-dents in the program. Project SEED students work on research projects with faculty and graduate students

in chemistry, polymer sci-ence, and chemical engineer-ing. Several of the department's industrial partners support Project SEED. Goodyear and Lubrizol give students tours of their research facilities, and the Omnova Solutions Foun-dation continues its financial support for the program. Sev-eral members of the depart-ment are officers and commit-tee chairs of Akron-ACS, in-

cluding Dr. David Perry (Section Chair), Dr. Chris Ziegler (Treasurer), Adessa Butler (Alternate Councilor & Chemical Education Commit-tee. Chair), and Dr. Bill Donovan (Project SEED Co-ordinator).

Chemistry Department News

Points of Interest

• 2009 Crano Lecture

• 2009 Project SEED

• Department Picnic

• Spring Graduates

• Silver based Antibac-terials Show Promise

The Department of Chemistry The University of Akron May 2009

Volume 1, Issue 2

Inside This Issue

Spring Picnic 2

Spring Graduates 3

Faculty and Staff Service Awards

4

Meetings and Pres-entations

4

Grants, Contracts, and Patents

5

Faculty News 5

UACHEM

May 2009

A monthly newsletter for our faculty,

graduate students, undergraduates,

alumni, and friends

Left, right: Drs. Mathew

Platz and David Mo-

darelli

Our annual Chemistry De-partment Spring Picnic com-menced on the grassy knoll adjacent to Knight Chemical Laboratory on the afternoon of May 4. And, in spite of the initial threat of rain and rather cool weather, Dr. Chris Ziegler eventually got those hot dogs and burgers cooking. With plenty of chips, pop, and potato salad as accompaniments, every-one from the department happily met to eat, laugh, recap spring semester, and talk and make trash. As al-ways, Sarah Robenstein’s grandmother’s cookies were delicious and very much appreciated.

Spring Picnic Pleases Students

Volume 1, Issue 2 Page 2

Even though the B.S. in Bio-chemistry program is only two years old this spring, the first undergraduate to receive its degree walked across the stage at E. J. Thomas Hall May 9. All in all, the six under-graduates who received chem-istry degrees this semester have ambitious plans, and the department is pleased to wel-come each to its alumni fold.

Mara Bryan The first to earn a B.S. in Biochemistry, she is also receiving a B.S. in Biol-ogy and plans to attend gradu-ate school after graduation.

Joseph Scavuzzo He earned a B.S. in Chemistry and plans to attend graduate school at the Department of Polymer Science at the Uni-versity of Akron.

Aaron Johnson He earned a B.S. in Chemistry and plans to attend graduate school at the University of Washington, his father’s alma mater.

Michelle Brown She re-ceived a B.A. in Chemistry and begins work at EnviroCoatings this summer.

Joey Harp He earned a B.S. in Chemistry with Honors and will attend graduate school at Case Western Reserve Uni-versity to pursue a Master’s in Anesthesiology.

Tae Yoon He earned a B.A. in Chemistry and is interview-ing for a position in industry.

LaTroya L. Cox She re-ceived a B.A. in Chemistry.

________________________

Three graduate students re-ceived degrees Spring 2009, and the department wishes them well in their future en-deavors. We are pleased to report that all have jobs under-way.

Saida Garcia Ph. D., “A Characterization of CdS/Polymer Interactions by Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Reso-nance.”

Wilhelm Malasi Ph. D., “Synthesis and Complexation of Functionalized Mixed Thia-Aza-Macrocyclic and Medium Sized Ligands“. Wilhelm will return to Tanzania to begin a teaching position.

Ivan Dolog Ph. D., “A Study of Charge Transport Phenom-ena and Nanoscale Investiga-tion of the Modified CdS Sur-face.” Ivan will continue work-ing for the UA Department of Physics.

Seven Undergraduate, Three Graduate Students Earn Degrees Spring ’09

Volume 1, Issue 2 Page 3

Top left: Aaron Johnson,

Top right: Tae Yoon

Left: Joe Scavuzzo

Right: Dr. Wilhelm Malasi

Above, from left to right: Michelle Brown, Mara Bryan, Joseph Harp.

Nine department members were recognized for their years of service to the univer-sity at a special reception held at the Quaker Square Station Ballroom April 22. Added together, their service to UA totals 135 years.

Dr. Weiping Zheng was rec-ognized for 5 years of service, Dr. Venkat Dudipala, Dr. Jun Hu, Dr. Todd Wagler and

Simon Stakleff were recog-nized for 10 years of service, Dr. Ed Lim and Dr. Chrys Wesdemiotis reached the 20 years of service milestone, and Dr. Helen Richter and Dr. Kim Calvo have been at the university for 25 years.

Each received a certificate and the 20 and 25 year mem-bers were given a gift of their choice.

Faculty and Staff Service Awards 2009

Faculty, Students Give Research at National, Regional Meetings crosslinked nanoparticles for antimicrobial applications”

The Central Regional Meeting of the ACS, Cleveland, May 20-23 Weiping Zheng — “N(epsilon)-Thioacetyllysine as a Multifaceted Chemi-cal Probe for Protein Deacetylase-Catalyzed Reactions”

Nuttara Jamonnak, Brett M. Hirsch, Yi Pang and Weiping Zheng — “SIRT1 Proc-essing of N(epsilon)-Acetyllysine Analogs”

Shayna J. Robinson, Brett M. Hirsch, Nuttara Jamonnak and Weiping Zheng — “N(epsilon)-Thioacetyllysine-Containing Human SIRT2 Enzyme Inhibitors: a Struc-ture-Activity Study”

Caroline A. Gallo, Brett M. Hirsch and Weiping Zheng — “N(epsilon)-Thioacetyllysine-Containing Human SIRT1 Enzyme Inhibitors: a Structure-Activity Study”

Anna M. Pischera, John O'Brien and Mat-thew P. Espe — “Synthesis, Characteriza-tion and Reactivity of Alumina Nanofibers”

Bimala Lama,Matthew Espe — “Characterization of Conjugated Polymer-Semiconductor Nanoparticles Compos-ites”

Cody Anderson and J. K. Hardy — “Permeation Sampling of Gasoline in Wa-ter” David Modarelli — "Photophysical Proper-ties of N-Confused Porphyrins"

Lek Wongwitwichote — "Syntheses and Characterizations of a Self-Assembled Oligo(phenyleneethynylene)"

Rashid Altimimi — "Synthesis of Free Base Porphyrin Dendrimers Containing Poly(Glutamic Acid)"

Jojo Joseph — "Photoinduced Electron Transfer Studies in Fullerene Dyads-Tetrads"

Linlin Li, Peter L. Rinaldi, Nikki Robishaw and Wiley J. Youngs — “NMR Characteri-zation of Poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-b-polyethylene glycol)-folate (PLGA-PEG-FOL)”

Liladhar Paudel, Faith J. Wyzgoski, Sara E. Whitson, Peter L. Rinaldi, M. Monica Giusti, Nuryati Pangestu, and Chrys Wesdemiotis - ”Characterization of Anthocyanins In El-derberry (Sambucus Peruviana) Extracts”

Xiaohong Li, Peter L. Rinaldi, Elizabeth F. McCord, Silapong Baiagern, Peter A. Fox, Sangrama Sahoo, and Jon Howell - “Multidimensional NMR Studies of Models for Krytox® Fluoropolymers”

Spring and summer are prime sea-sons for national and regional profes-sional meetings, and since March, Department of Chemistry faculty and students have given more than 20 papers at scientific meetings. The following lists professional meetings; authors and presenters (underlined); and presentation titles.

American Physical Society Meet-ing, Pittsburgh, March 16-20

Ram Bhatta and David Perry — “Ab initio Torsion-Wag Surface For the Ethyl Radical”

Sylvestre Twagirayezu and David Perry — “Vibrational Coupling Path-ways in the ν3 CH Stretch Fundamen-tal Region of Methanol as Revealed by Coherence-Detected FTMW-IR Spectroscopy”

Spring 237th ACS National Meeting in Salt Lake City, March 22-22

David E Dabney and Chrys Wesde-miotis — “ Anionic synthesis of chain-end and in-chain, cyano-functionalized polystyrenes by hy-drosilation of allyl cyanide with silyl hydride-functionalized polystyrenes”

Gerald F. Koser — “The Chemistry of [Hydroxy(tosyloxy)iodo]benzene”

Wiley J Youngs — “Silver-loaded shell

Volume 1, Issue 2 Page 4

Four Chemistry Department Service Awardees Left to right: Drs. Venkat Dudipala, Todd Wagler,

Chrys Wesdemiotis, Helen Richter.

In the patent area, Intellectual Ventures LLC and the University of Akron Research Foundation (UARF) recently entered into an exclusive license agreement which granted rights to four older under-utilized patents. In

The faculty continue to receive research support from national funding agencies.

Wiley Youngs: DOE as a sub-grant from ASU — $49,000

exchange for the grant of license, UARF will receive an upfront payment of $135,000 and 10% of all future profits generated. Two of these patents were granted to Dr. Dan Smith.

Continued from page 4

Grants, Contracts, and Patents News

Tessier — “Chlorophosphazenes, Their Lewis and Bronsted Acid-Base Chemistry and Potential Involvement of Superacids in the Problems Relating Their Syntheses and Storage”

Joanna Beres, Alyison M. Leigh, Chrys Wesdimiotis and Clair Tessier — “Use of Group 6 Carbonyl Reagents to Sta-bilize Siliconium Cations”

Jun Jack Hu and Tejal Deodhar — "2,4,9-Trithiaadamantane Achored DNA and RNA On Au Film and Nanoparticle Surfaces"

David S. Perry — "The Adiabatic Approxima-tion as a Diagnostic Tool for Torsion-Vibration Dynamics"

Zin-Min Tun, Matthew J. Panzner, Doug Medvetz, Wiley J. Youngs and Claire A.

Volume 1, Issue 2 Page 5

Faculty News

Research on a new antibiotic treat-ment option for pulmonary infec-tions including pneumonia and cystic fibrosis, developed at The University of Akron and Washing-ton University School of Medicine, has potential for significantly in-creasing survival among patients with lung infections.

The nanoparticle antibiotic treat-ment is composed of encapsulated silver carbene complexes, or SCCs (a novel class of silver-based an-timicrobials), developed by Dr. Wiley Youngs, UA Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, with col-laborators Dr. Yang Yun, UA as-sistant professor of biomedical engineering who developed the nanoparticle delivery system, and

Dr. Carolyn Cannon, co-director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The re-search team presented notable, treatment-related increases in sur-vival in a mouse pneumonia model at the American Thoracic Society 2009 International Conference in San Diego on May 19.

The concentrated nanoparticles are administered once daily. Al-though all of the untreated animals died, treatment with aerosolized, nano-sized, silver-based antibiotics allowed survival of 100 percent of mice inoculated with Pseudomona aeroginosa, a common bacteria that infects the respiratory tract in humans, especially those who are

immunocompromised, on mechani-cal ventilatory support or afflicted with cystic fibrosis. Treatment with the SCC-loaded nanoparticles also minimized weight loss and the bac-teria burden in the lung and re-duced the spread of bacteria from the lung through the blood stream to the spleen.

The team’s collaboration began in 2004 when Cannon approached Youngs with an inquiry about test-ing SCCs for their effectiveness in treating a resistant Burkholderia strain that had infected several

In his lab, Dr. Wiley Youngs works on the design of silver based antibacterials.

Youngs’ Compounds Show Promise as Anti-bacterials