the jordan a. engberg endowed professorship …the department of chemistry & molecular biology 2...

Department of Chemistry& Molecular Biology

North Dakota State UniversityBiochemistry - IACC Building

Volume 2 Number 1 January 2004

Chemistry - Ladd Hall

The Jordan A. EngbergEndowed Professorship Award for 2003

NDSU President Joseph A. Chapmanannounced the approval of threeendowed professorships.

Mukund Sibi, professor of chemistry,received The Jordan A. EngbergPresidential Professorship Award.

“These faculty members are promi-nent, highly recognized researchersand educators, I am pleased to awardthese well-deserved professorships,”said Chapman.

Sibi, who has gained national andinternational recognition for hisresearch in radical chemistry, joinedthe Department of Chemistry in 1987.He is the director of the Center forProtease Research, which is fundedwith a five-year $8.2 million grantfrom the National Institutes of Health- National Center for ResearchResources COBRE program.The center’s goals is to study thechemical and biochemical behaviorof metalloproteases, which areproteins that play a role in severaldiseases.

“In the area of research, Dr. Sibi’saccomplishments have been nothingshort of outstanding,” wrote JohnHershberger, associate chair andprofessor of chemistry, in a letter ofnomination. “His research is in thegeneral area of organic synthesis, withemphasis on the development of newsynthetic methodologies of bothfundamental and practical interest.”

A nomination letter by Gregory Cook,associate professor of chemistry,stated, “Mukund has put forth tremen-dous effort in research and educationat NDSU and has endeavored topromote our department and ouruniversity around the world. Hisoutstanding service and outstandingaccomplishments are a testamentto NDSU and I can think of no onemore deserving of this honor.”

Sibi earned his bachelor’s andmaster’ s degrees at BangaloreUniversity, India, and his doctorateat the City University of New York.His honors include the 1997 Dean’sAward for Research Excellence andthe 1998 Fred Waldron Award forResearch Excellence.

Mukund Sibi

The Department of Chemistry & Molecular Biology 2 January 2004

A Message From the Chair

Dr. Kenny Lipkowitz, Chair.

Hello again from the northern plains,dear friends, where, as I write thismessage to you, it’s snowing. Gofigure, it’s the beginning of Decemberand there is already a huge pile ofsnow in the C parking lot! But aswinter encroaches it gives me theopportunity to reflect upon what hashappened since the last newsletter.

One thing I promised in that newsletterwas that by January we would havea new-look website. Because Dr.Esposito, our staff computationalscientist, is so well versed in comput-ing and has an eye for graphic design,he was able to complete the websitewithin six weeks of beginning theproject. If you haven’t alreadyvisited our site, go to the URL http://www.chem.ndsu.nodak.edu/ andtake a look; any suggestions youhave for adding to and enhancing thewebsite are welcomed.

I also said that I was seeking approvalto merge the Department of Biochem-istry and Molecular Biology withChemistry to create the Departmentof Chemistry and Molecular Biology.That request is percolating throughthe bureaucratic network of academeand government and I hope to tellyou soon about whether or not thishas been approved by the state ofNorth Dakota.

In the meanwhile we are acting asa single department with mergedcourses, seminars, budgets and

ambitions. Indeed we have alreadymoved the existing biochemists fromLoftsgard Hall into the IACC buildingand we will be filling some of theempty labs in that building with newhires in the very near future.

A faculty search is underway for ananalytical chemist and for a biochem-ist or molecular biologist.

One of the questions you mighthave is:

Why call ourselves the departmentof Chemistry and Molecular Biology…what’s with the molecular biologydeal?!

My answer, in part, is that the 21stcentury is being touted as the centuryof Biology. I’ll agree with that assess-ment for the forthcoming 15 year timeperiod, but I think it’ll then becomethe century of our environment wherewe will truly become stewards of theland... but that’s just conjecture on mypart and getting off the topic at hand.

As I see it, for the near future, workingon biological problems at the molecu-lar level (molecular biology) is com-mensurate with national needs interms of health, and it provides abetter understanding of who we are.Moreover it provides us with a solidplatform onto which we can build evennewer and more creative endeavorsfor the more distant future.

Let me put molecular biology’s pastand future into perspective for you byquoting Syndey Brenner, DistinguishedProfessor at the Salk Institute. Thisquote is taken from an editorial in the24 October, 2003 issue of Science.“It is amusing to reflect that molecularbiology was once considered to be acompletely useless subject, remotefrom medical applications and of onlyacademic interest. When sequencingand cloning of DNA were invented,molecular biology was also considereddangerous, capable of creating newdiseases and even threatening theevolution of the human species.Eventually, reason prevailed, as itbecame evident that the remarkablefusion of genetics and biochemistry in

molecular biology would be the basisfor all future biological research andfor the applied biological sciences,such as agriculture and medicine.”

I tend to agree with Professor Brennerand for that reason I have beenpushing (hard) for this union betweenmolecular biologists and chemiststo take place on the NDSU campus.With some luck it will happen in ourdepartment.

But there is more than atomic-scalebiology in our department; there existother initiatives in our departmentdirected towards strengthening analready potent group of materialsscientists, synthetic chemists andphysical chemists. As componentsof these initiatives come to fruition I’llbe telling you more about them.

For the moment, however, I amfocusing my attention on developingthe infrastructure for the department.Along these lines I have asked twonew staff members, one in computa-tional chemistry, Dr. Emilio Esposito,and one in X-ray crystallography, Dr.Peter Daniels, to tell you more aboutthemselves and their research exper-tise (see pages 3 and 5).

In addition to these staffers I hope toreport to you in the next issue of thisnewsletter the names and expertise ofthe new directors of the department’sNMR facility and the Core Biologyfacility that we are constructing in theIACC building. This is being done withProfessor Sibi who is the Director ofthe Center for Protease Research.More about this facility will be givenin the next newsletter.

As you can see we are making rapidprogress in melding two departments.The reason for this fast amalgamationis the commonality of studying natureat an atomic/molecular level. Thereexist many opportunities for us tomake major advances in both scienceand technology this way and weanticipate national recognition forour work.

As we develop our ideas we arecognizant that we can’t do it in a

cont’d page 3


CGThe

Cook Group

A message from the Chair cont’d

vacuum. If you have an opinion orsuggestions that you feel wouldbe of value to us, please let meknow. As you know, you arealways welcome to visit with meand the other staff and facultymembers here at NDSU when youare in Fargo.

Until then I again wish you contin-ued success with your work andI express my sincerest desire foryou to be happy and to be atpeace with yourselves and withothers.

Dr. Peter Daniels has been namedto fill the position of Staff Crystal-lographer. He will be coming to usfrom the University of Bayreuth,Germany where he is currently aresearch assistant at the Laboratoryfor Crystallography.

Peter has expertise in crystallogra-phy, electron microprobe analysis,polarized light microscopy, andsolid state NMR spectroscopy.

Dr. Peter Daniels.

New StaffCrystallographer

What’s Cooking in theCook Group

Since the last time the Cook Grouphas appeared, we’ve undergone anearly 50% turnover in people so mostof this article is about who we lost andwho we initiated as cookies.

First of all, we have gone fromtwo post-docs to one. Mani took apostdoctoral position with Prof. JinCha at Wayne State in Detroit andLiangong obtained an academicposition in Beijing. However, Dr.Bikash Maity from NCL, Pune, India,joined the group and is working oncatalytic asymmetric Pd/In-mediatedallylation of carbonyls.

by Brandon Gustafson

Graduate students Robert Kargbo(working on indium-mediated allylationof imines and aziridines) and XiaominJin (synthesizing MMP inhibitors) arestill with us, but we have gained twomore members. First, ManjushaSaraswathiamma joined from Kerala,India, and is working on palladiumcatalyzed methodology. Secondly.Ryuji Hayashi joined from Indianaand is working on the synthesis ofMMP inhibitors.

Finally, the undergraduates to roundout the group; the newcomer KristinMeyer joined the group this fall andis assisting with indium-mediatedcyclizations. Beginning Spring 2004,Karen Beckman will join the group andhopefully announce what she wantsto do. Finally, Brandon Gustafson(I’ve been here forever) is working onindium-mediated cyclizations.

As you can see, the Cook Group isstill around. We invite you to stop byor look us up on the web at http://cook.chem.ndsu.nodak.edu/ andsee what we are all about.

Boudjouk GroupResearch:

The group continues to be involved inthree CNSE research projects;1) Anti-fouling / fouling-release

coatings for ship hulls (directed byONR),

2) Microsensor transducer materials(directed by DMEA), and

3) Polymeric Magnetic Materials(directed by DARPA).

The group just returned from the ONR2003 Winter Program Review on theirAnti-fouling/fouling-release coatingsresearch in Orlando, Florida Dec. 8-10.Boudjouk group research regardingcoating synthesis and biofilm assaysfor challenging coatings was wellreceived by Navy officials.

Simultaneously, the DMEAMicrosensor Systems 2003 ProgramReview was convened in Dallas,Texas. Greg McCarthy and Dean Grierrepresented the Boudjouk group andtheir research at this forum.

Current Boujouk Group members:Thomas E. Ready; CNSE Sr. Research ScientistSeok-bong Choi; CNSE Sr. Research ScientistJohnson Thomas; CNSE Post-doctoral Research AssociateShane Stafslien; CNSE Research SpecialistZoha Al-Badri; Graduate StudentJordan Sand; UndergraduateJason Feser; UndergraduateJoni Altringer; UndergraduateRenae Feldjheim; UndergraduateMatthew Ennis; UndergraduateLisa Drylie; Undergraduate

Wenfang Sun, Aaron Borui Qui and Jun Qiu.

By: Thomas Ready

Newest Family Member


By: Jonathan Stack

10 or 15 years ago it was entirely realistic for companies to spendmillions of dollars on supercomputers for their complex calculations.Eli Lilly is as good an example as any, having spent $50 million on aCray Supercomputer enclosed in a glass case and totally immersedwith liquid coolant. Their supercomputer is now viewed mostly for“ooohs and aaaahs” appeal rather than computing power. The adventof free operating systems like LINUX, the speed increases inprocessor and networks, and the decrease in prices of hardwarelike RAM memory, disk drives, and motherboards have all createda “perfect storm” helping make supercomputing power available tothe smaller budgets.

The LINUX cluster built over a period from 2001-2002 in Ladd HallRoom 200 is an example of researchers getting the most bang fortheir buck. Initially, the Lipkowitz Research Group had a budget of$25,000 to build a supercomputer for parallel processing. A smallpoll among schools like Indiana University revealed other researchgroups spending comparable amounts for 8-16 tower-like servercomputers networked together. Over the next 2 years, we acquired50 rack-like computers, 2 network-quality switches, and 1 tower-likemaster computer, albeit having purchased one-half for $25,000 andthe next half for only $15,000 a year later!!

How were we able to assemble all the computers in such a prolificfashion? First must come an understanding of the problem beingsolved: parallel processing is a term widely used in high performancecomputing meaning multiple computers working on little pieces ofone big calculation. In the case of the Lipkowitz Research Group, wesend bits of 3 dimensional grid-space intermolecular energy calcula-tions for our studies of chirality from the master computer to each ofthe 50 slave computers. The parallel setup just mentioned is termeda Beowulf Cluster; other parallel setups may use all peer-to-peercomputers. Application of such an instrument in our group is focusedon basic concepts of stereodiscrimination in chromatography andstereoinduction in catalysis.

The last issue to consider is the balance between computing powerand cost. We could go to a company like Silicon Graphics andspend all $40,000 on 1, 2 or 3 workstations. Each processor in thosemachines would really be fast, for sure, and could probably even tieyour shoes in the morning, but how much actual scientific explora-tion can one get done? With many less-expensive computers, anetwork connecting those computers and with savvy programming, itis easy to see how one can assemble a cluster with far more outputpower for far less money. We have found one caveat, to be sure, andthat is the increased maintenance of a cluster versus a new propri-etary supercomputer. So if one has no interest or skills for day-to-daymaintenance, then it is better to pay a higher price for a factory-builtmachine. The tradeoff, however, is worth the work because we cannow do computational studies in a way that would otherwise be toocostly and we can do it in a timely manner.

Ne w F a c u l t y, N e w L a b s - 2 n d F l o o r -

Lipkowitz Group:Supercomputing at Bargain PricesProfessor Lipkowitz and some of his group

members in the laboratory.

Left to right: Phil Durham, Ph.D Graduate student; Dr. DaquanGao, Postdoctoral; Kenny Lipkowitz; Jonathan Stack, Ph.DGraduate student.


My group is working on surface chemistry issues which is asubtopic of physical chemistry. Our projects are relatedto heterogeneous catalysis and material science. That is,our research is quite close to industrial applications whichare relevant for our daily lives. The class of materials weare looking at (metal oxides and bimetallic systems) areubiquitous in our modern technological world, findinguse in applications as disparate as components ofbiocompatible implants to photo-catalysis. Besides the

Surface Chemistry Groupmoving inBy: Uwe Burghaus

L a d d H a l l - U p d a t e

Uwe Burghaus

Molecular Modelling and Bioinformatics Studio Update...By Emilio Esposito

My background is in Molecular Model-ling, specifically Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR), Com-parative (Homology) Modelling, andSimulated Docking. The use of thesecomputational chemistry methodolo-gies is an integral part of the drugdiscovery and refinement process. Allof these methods can provide a myriadof potentially correct results. Thechallenging aspect of these methodolo-gies is the selection and interpretationof the theoretical results. Computa-tional chemistry and the methodologies

that I employ are not a substitute toexperimental methods and do notalways reproduce experimentalresults, but they provide an avenueof added insight to the experimentalresults and aid in the design ofexperiments.

I look forward to collaborating withthose in the department who areinterested in gaining insight into theirresearch projects through the use ofcomputational chemistry. With theopening of the Molecular Modelling

and Bioinformatics Studio in the Springof 2004 the students of the Chemistryand Molecular Biology Department willexperience the implementation andanalysis of computational chemistrytechniques and methodologies.

Scott Rothstein.

Molecular Beam.

scientific challenges we face, the tools we are using are relevant for many importantindustrial processes such as molecular beam epitaxy, sensor design, coating i.e.growth phenomena, and in principle for all kinds of (ultra) high vacuum applicationsranging from vacuum wrapping of food to the design of parts for earth orbiters. Well,I hoped I could convince you that it is fun and worthwhile to work on surfacechemistry topics.

Specifically, we currently follow three major research lines.

First, we apply surface vibrational spectroscopy (HREELS) and thermal desorptionspectroscopy (TDS) to metal-on-metal catalysts. In the beginning of September aused HREELS-TDS system was transferred from my old group in Germany toNDSU; the body of it has already been set up with support from Scott Rothstein whospent three weeks in the surface chemistry lab (“graduate rotation”).

Second, characterizing the morphology of metal oxide surfaces as well as gaininga deeper understanding of gas-surface interactions which is key for catalysis. Indoing so, we use mainly a molecular beam apparatus which has just arrived and isbeing put together. Molecular beams might be compared with LASER beams, however, instead of light we use amonochromatic beam of particles (He atoms, CO2 molecules, etc..).

Third, the results will be modeled, e.g. by Monte Carlo computer simulations. We already have a number of programsfor doing that.


Chemistry 121General ChemistryMatter, measurement, atoms, ions, molecules,reactions, chemical calculations, thermochem-istry, bonding, molecular geometry, periodicity,and gases.Prerequisite or coreq: Math 103.

Chemistry 117Chemical Concepts and ApplicationsIntroduction to general and organic chemistry,with applications drawn from the health,environment, and materials sciences.Prerequisite: Math 103 or equivalent.

Greg Oswald

Introductory Chemistry Courses & Labs

Chemistry 117 Class

Chemisry 117 LabsDenley Jacobson

Roy Garvey

NDSU’s customprinted lab

manual

one hour in-class exams plus the finalexam during the semester.”

“With all of these learning toolsavailable, the chemistry 117 studentsare exposed to the course materialfrequently. Chemistry is a languagethat must be practiced frequently inorder achieve success.”

Chemistry 117,Fall 2003, taughtby Greg Oswaldhas two sectionswith a total of 226students.

Greg Oswald says “Chemistry 117covers many topics in one semester.Therefore, students need to beencouraged to keep up their effortsas we march through selected topicsof general and organic chemistry.Their encouragement comes in avariety of formats.”

“For in-class Powerpoint lectures, thestudents will print off the incompleteversion of the lecture notes and bringthem to class to fill-in the blank,complete the calculation, draw thegraph, etc.”

“Anonymous in-class participationis instituted with the Personal Re-sponse System (PRS) at the Monday-Tuesday recitation sessions and in-class for points on Wednesdays only.”

“Periodically, they will have onlinehomework assignments that I create,administered and graded by theWebAssign website.”

“Students also participate in onlinequizzes throughout the semester. Theonline quizzes are created with thetextbook publisher’s online databaseof test questions.”

“Administration and grading of thequizzes is accomplished by thepublisher’s course management tool,PageOut. In addition, there are two-

Chemistry 121,Fall 2003, taughtby Dr. DenleyJacobson hastwo sections witha total of 922students.

Dr. Jacobson hasbeen teaching this

class for 14 years. His presentationsentail lecture, overheads and dailyclass notes placed on the web.Exams make use of computer scansheets for quick results.

Tutoring for this class is handled byProfessor Emeritus Melvin Morriswho is in the office daily from 1:00 -3:30 pm. Dr. Morris recently receivedthe College of Science Award forDistinguished Service.

A separate project, SupplementalInstruction, led by advanced under-graduate students meet with andassist class members.

Chemistry 117 &121 Labs areunder the direc-tion of Dr. RoyGarvey. For Fall2003, there are10 sections ofthe Chemistry117 labs with166 students and36 sections of

the Chemistry 121 labs with 573students.


Biochemistry Courses & Labs

Dr. Meinhardt’s IR4 Lab:Allen Peckrul, Roger Erber and Sheila Haugen.

Dr. Robert Sparks teaches the remaining one-third of the Biochemistry 460 course for 212students. He is also teaching Biochemistry 719,Molecular Biology of Gene Expression andRegulation.

Dr. Killilea’s Biochemistry 460 Lab

Dr. Srivastava’s Lab

Rachel Lareau is cloning a gene viaPCR reaction. Abirlal Banerjee is settingup Agarose gel electrophoresis toanalyze PCR products.

A set of spectrophotometer andspectrofluorimeter. Abirlal Banerjee is measuringan enzyme-catalyzed reaction.

Rachel Lareau is purifying a proteinvia Pharmacia’s FPLC system.

Molecular Biology facility of Srivastava’s group.Rachel Lareau is transforming plasmids inbacterial calls.

Dr. Derek Killilea teaches the first two-thirds,which also includes seven laboratory sections,of Biochemistry 460, Foundations of Biochemis-try and Molecular Biology 1.

Dr. D.K. Srivastava-Comprehensive Biochemistry 701.

Dr. Steven Meinhardt teaches Biochemistry465/665 Principles of Physical Chemistry andBiophysics and Biochemistry 473/673, Methodsof Biochemical Research. Dr. Meinhardt is alsoresponsible for the IR-4 Laboratory.

Faculty:

Meets in Ladd Hall 308.

Working hard.


Rodgers Lab News

Wenfang Sun’s Lab

Dr. Fengqi Guo, PostDoc; Dr. Sun; Nicole Miller,Grad Student; Paul Barron, undergrad; Li Win,Grad Student.

New graduate student Li Wen joinedDr. Sun’s group this semester. Liobtained his BS degree in Engineer-ing from Sichuan University in 2001.After that he worked in the PolymerResearch Institute at SichuanUniversity as a Research Assistantfor two years. We welcome the freshair brought by Li.

Dr. Sun presented a talk “Wavelengthdispersion of two-photon absorptionand two-photon induced fluorescenceof stilbazolium derivatives” at the48th SPIE annual conference at SanDiego in August; and an invited talk“Photophysical properties and opticallimiting of platinum (II) 4’-arylterpyri-dyl acetylide complexes” at the ThirdInternational Symposium on OpticalPower Limiting at Sedona in October.Dr. Fengqi Guo and undergraduatestudent Paul Barron presented two

posters at the 4th Biennial NorthDakota/South Dakota JointEPSCoR Conference in Septem-ber. Paul will also present his workon the synthesis and characteriza-tion of partially water-solublepentaazadentate porphyrin-likegadolinium (III) complexes at theACS Annual Spring Conferencein March, 2004.

Graduate student Nichole Millerpresented her second yearsemester entitled “Photosensitiz-ers and Photodynamic Therapy”on Oct. 13.

Dr. Sun gave birth to her firstbaby Aaron Borui Qiu on Dec. 5th.She is doing fine at this time,still working on revision of threepapers and a proposal.

See Page 3 for family picture.

The Department of Chemistry& Molecular Biology

North Dakota State UniversityPO Box 5516

Fargo, ND 58105

Rose Overby, EditorDr. Kenny Lipkowitz, Head

Dr. John Hershberger,Associate Chair

To obtain a copy or submit comments:e-mail:

[email protected]

Dr. Kent Rodgers attended the Elev-enth International Conference onBiological Inorganic Chemistry inCairns, Australia in July, 2003. Hepresented an invited talk titled “AKinetic Trap Mechanism for Release ofNO from Cytochrome c’: Implicationsfor Inactivation of the NO Senor,Soluble Guanylate Cyclase”. He alsopresented two posters displayingfurther aspects of the research goingon in the Rodgers group. After themeeting, he explored Heron Island onthe Great Barrier Reef. This fall healso gave an invited talk, “NitrosylHemes: Electronic, Structural, andMechanistic Aspects of their Roles inNO Sensing and Transport”, at Mon-tana State University in Bozeman.

The Rodgers group has grown in thelast few months. Dr. Graeme R. A.Wyllie has joined the group as a postdoctoral fellow. He originally hails fromBalloch, Scotland. He did his under-graduate work in Scotland at TheUniversity of St. Andrews and postgraduate work at The Robert Gordon’sUniversity. These studies werefollowed up by graduate work in Dr. W.

Robert Scheidt’s laboratory at TheUniversity of Notre Dame.

The increased Scottish flavor of theRodgers lab comes with a price. Inreturn for Dr. Wyllie, the Rodgers grouphas traded one of our recent under-graduates, Nathan Silvernail, back tothe Scheidt lab. Nathan recentlygraduated from NDSU and is currentlyenjoying life as a graduate student atthe University of Notre Dame. Onlytime will tell who received the bettertrade...

The second addition to the Rodgersgroup is Ellen Sophia Wang. Ellen wasborn June 14, 2003. She is thedaughter of graduate student Lei Tang.Lei is close to finishing her Ph.D. andhas accepted a post doctoral positionat Fox Chase Cancer Center inPhiladelphia, PA with Dr. Eileen Jaffe.

The group is also happy to see thepublication of the chapter entitled“Electron Transfer: Cytochromes,” ajoint effort between Dr. Gudrun Lukat-Rodgers and Kent. This chapterrecently appeared in Volume 8 of theseries Comprehensive CoordinationChemistry II.

Kent Rodgers

Kent Rodgers Goes toAustralia as Guest


Our Scholarship Recipients 2003 - 2004

DONALD BOLIN MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP,SCHOLARSHIPS AWARDED TO OUTSTANDING STUDENT

majors in chemistry.

Aaron Krueger, Minot, NDKarla Radke, Fargo, NDAmy Richter, Rugby, ND

CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT HONOR

SCHOLARSHIPScholarships presented to chemistry majorson the basis of scholastic achievement.

David Schultz, Fargo, ND

GLENN WEDEL MEMORIAL

SCHOLARSHIPA scholarship presented to an outstandingstudent majoring in chemistry.

Christine Bultema, Fargo, ND

RALPH DUNBAR MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIPScholarships awarded to chemistry majors onthe basis of scholastic achievement andcharacter as exemplified by Ralph E. Dunbar,Dean of he College of Chemistry and Physics,1945-1960

Heidi Doctor, Jamestown, NDEvan Erickson, Lakeville, MNDerik Hoerner, Richardton, NDShawn Power, Langdon, ND

ROY MILDE FELLOWSHIP AWARDA scholarship presented to an outstandinggraduate student who has been enrolled in thechemistry program for more than one year.Preference is given to graduates of high schoolsand colleges in ND and the upper midwest.

Levi Stanley, Williston, ND

JAMES & MAY SUGIHARA SCHOLARSHIPA scholarship presented to outstandingstudents majoring in chemistry.

Jessica Goreham, Fargo, NDCurtiss Kovash, Mandan, NDAdam Wohl, Minot, ND

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH MENTORSHIPS

IN CHEMISTRYThese mentorships are awarded to freshmenmajoring in chemistry who demonstratestrong potential for chemical research. Theaward includes a research position in afaculty research laboratory and a $1200stipend.

Adam Wohl, Minot, NDMelissa Buckle, Fargo, NDBen Meyer, Pierz, MNDaniel Eiler, Fargo, NDRyan Heintz, Chaseley, NDAnkit Gupta, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Former Faculty Invitedas Seminar Speaker

A very nice “homecoming for Chemistry faculty”was fulfilled when our seminar speaker wasformer Chemistry faculty person, Dr. MarkGordon,(center) with Dennis Tallman and Vice-President Phil Boudjouk. The after seminar “redcarpet event” took place at the home of MikePage.

Sanku Mallik Inducted Into Tapestry of Diverse TalentsThe Tapestry of Diverse Talents recognizes students, faculty, staff and alumni for the diversity and contributionsthey bring to NDSU.

Dr. Xiaoping Nie presents a poster at theAdvisory Board Meeting for the Center forProtease Research.

Sanku Mallik is an Associate Profes-sor at the Department of Chemistry,NDSU. He is a person of integrity,intelligence, patience, compassion,and curiosity.

Sanku is originally from India. Hereceived his undergraduate degreefrom the Indian Institute of Technol-ogy in Kharagpur, India, his PhDin chemistry from Case Western

Reserve University, and hispostdoctoral experience at the Califor-nia Institute of Technology, altogetherrepresenting a very diverse educa-tional experience.

Every year, Dr. Mallik hosts a dinnerin which each student would bring adish from their country of origin.These students represent a variety ofbackgrounds, cultures, and countriesincluding Bangladesh, India, Algeria,Ukraine, Canada, China, Nova Scotia,and the United States.

One of his nominators noted that “notonly does he bring cultural diversityto the school himself; he continuallypromotes it in his students andfriends. He is an extraordinary personwith an immense ability to promoteunderstanding and diversity amongall he encounters.”


Student Chemistry Group Receives National AwardThe NDSU student affiliate chapterof the American Chemical Society(ACS), has been selected to receive a“commendable” award for its chapteractivities conducted during the 2002-2003 academic year.

Of the more than 950 student chaptersnationwide, only 52 institutionsreceived the “commendable” award,based on the chapters’ annual reportof activities. During the 2002-03academic year, the NDSU chapterwas active in community service,fundraising and national meetingparticipation.

Students presented chemistry andscience demonstrations and spoke onchemistry careers at area schools. Inaddition, they participated in NDSU’sScience Olympiad and raised approxi-mately $4,000 to support the cost

Event: At Yunker FarmNot So Scary Haunted HouseExperiments done: Silly Slime/Goop

Jessica Augdahl.

The family of Joel W. Broberg,professor of chemistry, establishedthe Joel W. Broberg MemorialUndergraduate Resources Centerin the Department of Chemistry.

The room serves as a place forundergraduates to congregatebetween and after classes,Chemistry Club meetings and otherdepartmental functions.

They now have a place to meet withtheir peers, relax, study and gainthe sense of community that alreadyexists among faculty and graduatestudents. The room becomes a kindof town square–a crossroads atwhich freshmen, for example, caninteract with seniors, and get helpfrom their peers in succeeding intheir academic careers. There’s asense of professional ambianceabout it.

The room also provides a setting inwhich students can be given job

Broberg Room

of demonstrations and attendanceat ACS national meetings. Approxi-mately 12-15 students each yeargive research presentations at thenational meetings.

“The students should be reallyproud of this recognition,” said SethRasmussen, faculty adviser andassistant professor of chemistry.“This places the NDSU chapter inthe top 10 percent in the nation.”

In addition to society recognition, theNDSU chapter will be acknowledgedin Chemical and Engineering News,the society’s official national maga-zine, and in the student affiliatesmagazine, In Chemistry. Awardwinning chapters also will be recog-nized at the society’s annual meet-ing in March 2004.

information, graduate opportunities,and reading assignments fromshelves of journals or work out toughproblems on blackboards.

Throughout his 34 years at NDSU,Broberg earned the respect andfriendships of nearly 25,000 studentsand numerous colleagues. In 1971he was awarded the Blue Key Doctorof Service Award for his outstandingservice to the University and thecommunity.

Broberg came to NDSU in 1947 asan assistant professor of inorganicchemistry. He served as director ofthe Institute of Teacher Educationfrom 1969 to 1975, and directed 18National Science Foundation SummerScience institutes for high schoolstudents.

Joel Broberg retired from NDSU in1981 and died June 25, 1993.

Following this, the annual JoelBroberg Lectureship in Chemistry

was created in his name and fundedthrough contributions from formerstudents, friends, faculty, and areabusinesses through the NDSUDevelopment Foundation.

Its purpose is to honor a distin-guished colleague and teacher, andto bring in eminent scientists tobetter instill in students and facultythe excitement of science in generaland chemistry in particular duringthis age of rapidly explodingtechnology.

Karla Radke and Erin Schoep.

Students in Broberg Room


ton

The Sibi GroupBy: Jake ZimmermanGraduate Student

The Sibi group has had many peoplejoin and leave the group in the pastfew months. Recently, Goran Petrovicfinished his work with the group andwill be joining K. C. Nicolaou’s group atthe Scripps Research Institute to dototal synthesis work. Xiaoping Niehas recently accepted a post doctoralposition at SynPep, a company whichsynthesizes peptides, in Dublin, CA.Mona Aasmul worked in the Sibi groupfor two years and is now employedwith chemical abstract services (CAS)in Columbus, OH. Hirofumi Matsunaga

moved back to Kumamoto Universityin Japan to see if his graduate stu-dents were working for the past twoyears. Sandeep Ghorpade is nowemployed by a pharmaceuticalcompany in Mumbai, India. RuzhouZhang has moved to Shanghai, Chinawhere he works for General Electric.Subbu has accepted a post doctoralposition at Rutgers University.

With all of the people that have leftthe Sibi group, one would think that ithas shrunk drastically in size. This isnot the case, however. Liwen He hasjoined the group and is currentlyworking on a total synthesis projectinvolving enantioselective free radicalchemistry. Kennosuki Ito has joinedour group from Kyushu University and

is working on enantioselective nitrileoxide cycloadditions. Joel Lischefskiis a first year graduate student andhas recently joined the Sibi group.Regina So will join the Sibi group as apost-doc in December after completingher graduate work at the University ofConnecticut. Karen Preskey and JohnPinke are undergraduate students inthe Sibi lab.

The group has also made a largeeffort to reduce the smell in the labby encasing a majority of the organicchemicals in vented cabinets. LeviStanley has resurrected one GC thathas been dead since 1996 so that thegroup can do chiral separations of lowmolecular weight compounds.

Greetings from the Tallman Lab!This fall the lab was full of bustle asDr. Jie (Jim) He received a newscanning probe instrument. Afterthe physical plant completed somerequired laboratory modifications, thegroup joined in helping Jim set upthe new instrument, which has bothcurrent and specific ion mappingcapability. As this was happening,Ankit Gutupa, a freshman undergradu-ate student from India majoring inchemistry, joined the group. He isworking with Matthew Dewald onelectrodeposition of conjugatedpolymers on aluminum alloy.

In October Dr. Kirill Levine presenteda poster at the 204th Meeting of theElectrochemical Society held inOrlando, FL. The title of his presenta-tion was “Influence of ElectronTransfer Mediators on the Electrodepo-sition of Polypyrrole on AluminumAlloy.”

In November Dr. Tallman, Jie He,and Matthew Dewald attended the Tri-Service Corrosion Conference in LasVegas. All three presented recent

research results as part of thecorrosion group’s annual programreview conducted by the Air ForceOffice of Scientific Research. BothJie and Matthew presented posterson their research while Dr. Tallmangave an oral presentation to thegathered Air Force officers andscientists. Other presenters from

various academic, industry andgovernment laboratories were alsopresent to talk about various methodsof corrosion protection on vehiclesranging from planes to ships. Not all ofthe time spent in Las Vegas was work

however, as the group took in a fewshows and lost plenty of money to theone armed bandits in the casinos.

Amy Richter has also rejoined the labafter a summer working at CornellUniversity and continues to work onelectroless deposition processes.Amy and Krill Levine have started tocollaborate on further exploration ofthe electroless deposition processes.

In the near future, the lab will be goingthrough a variety of changes. DanteBattocchi, a student under Dr.Bierwagen in Polymers and Coatings,recently defended his master’s thesisand will be joining the Tallman Groupworking with the scanning probeinstrument. Jennifer Stafford andMatthew Dewald will be looking todefend their master’s thesis with in thenext year while Amy Richter will begraduating with a Bachelor’s degree inChemistry in May.

It has been a productive year for thegroup as twelve publications haveappeared in print, are in press or havebeen accepted for publication in 2003.

The Tallman LabBy: Amy Richter

North Dakota State UniversityDepartment of Chemistry & Molecular BiologyP. O. Box 5516Fargo, ND 58105-5516

Non-Profit OrgU. S. Postage Paid

Permit No. 818Fargo, ND 58105

Dr. Mahesh Jaseja joined the Chemistry Department inJanuary 2002 as Research Assistant Professor inBiomolecular NMR Spectroscopy.

Dr. Jaseja’s interests are focused on structure-function rela-tionship of proteins, and studying the molecular mechanism(protein-protein interactions) involved in various pathways indiseased states, using solution NMR spectroscopy, proteinengineering and other biochemical techniques.

The HIV viral envelope glycoprotein subunit gp120 plays acritical role in the entry of the virus in host cells. Gp120interacts with the CD4 glycoprotein on the host cell surface,leading to conformational changes in gp120, which in turnfacilitates the binding of the chemokine receptor to gp120

NMR Facility, Dunbar Hall

Dr. Mahesh Jaseja

Research Interests: BiomolecularNMR spectroscopy (peptide andprotein NMR)

glycoprotein. This interaction between gp120 andchemokine receptor induces further conformationalchanges in the envelope subunit gp41, which results infusion of the viral envelope with the host cell, henceinitiating infection.

The core regions of large protein-protein interfaces canbe reproduced on molecular scaffolds. The rationale usedto study the various interactions of gp120 during thesteps involved in viral cell-entry is to downsize gp120 tomini-protein system, which will allow optimization basedon structure-function analyses. This information thuswould be useful in designing and testing therapies againstviral entry in host cells. Gp120 mimics will be structurallyevaluated using NMR spectroscopy. The mimetics willalso be tested for functional and immunologic resem-blance to HIV gp120 (in collaboration with Prof SethPincus, Director Research Institute for Children,Children’s Hospital, New Orleans, LA).

The interaction of cancer cells with laminin, one of themajor components of extra-cellular matrix (ECM) is acritical step in the metastasis process. The lamininreceptors, such as non-integrin 67 kDa laminin receptor(67LR), a protein over-expressed on the surface of tumorcells, interact with laminin. This interaction facilitates themigration of tumor cells through basement membranes.In order to understand the molecular mechanism involvedin this pathway, structure-function studies on thebioactive peptides derived from these interacting proteinshave been undertaken. Currently antimetastatic peptido-mimetics are being designed.

the jordan a. engberg endowed professorship …the department of chemistry & molecular biology 2...

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