Department of Chemistry

Five graduate students in the Department of Chemistry have been awarded the 2012 Outstanding Teaching Award. These awards are conferred annually by the UGA Center for Teaching and Learning. The recipients, (left-to-right in photo) Daniel Sexton, Matthew Davidson, Timothy Pope, Robert Gilliard and Christopher Nealon, are recognized for their outstanding contributions to instruction by students serving as teaching assistants in the classroom or laboratory.

Dr. Charles Kutal, chemistry professor and associate dean of the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named one of the best undergraduate teachers in the nation by the Princeton Review and RateMyProfessors.com. Dr. Kutal was included among The Best 300 Professors which was released April 3^rd, 2012. Two other UGA faculty were also included on this list: Dr. John Knox, an associate professor of geography, and Dr. Audrey Haynes, an associate professor of political science.

Assistant Professor Shanta Dhar has been granted a three-year Idea development Award from the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Prostate Cancer Research Program (DoD-PCRP) for her grant entitled, “Combined Chemotherapy and Anti-Inflammatory Therapy for Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) using a Nanoparticle Platform.” This study aims to develop a targeted combination therapeutic approach for the treatment for metastatic prostate cancer using a highly engineered nanoparticle.

If genes provide the blueprint for life and proteins are the machines that do much of the work for cells, then carbohydrates linked to proteins are among the tools that enable cells to communicate with the outside world and each other.

But until now, scientists have been unable to determine the structure of a biologically important so-called GAG proteoglycan—or even to agree whether these remarkably complex molecules have well-defined structures.