Zoom link for seminar: https://zoom.us/j/92955070680

Hydrocarbons of all shapes and sizes are found throughout the various stages of star- and planet formation. Recently, using radio astronomical observations, a variety of cyclic- and even polycyclic hydrocarbons have been detected in the very cold (10 K) Taurus molecular cloud. These detections challenge our understanding of the chemical formation mechanisms under these low-temperature and low-density conditions.

Ammonia (NH₃) is important in the production of many products including fertilizers, plastics, resins, synthetic fabrics, and explosives. At the industrial scale, NH₃ is produced using the Haber–Bosch (H–B) process, which is typically carried out at high temperatures and pressures. This process produces over 300 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, and consumes 1-2% of the world’s energy supply.

Aerosols can have significant impact on the environment and health based on their chemical composition. It’s imperative to understand the chemical composition at the single particle level as it has influence on ice nucleation potential, cloud condensing nuclei potential and radiative forcing.¹ Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an emerging technique for online analysis of single particle aerosol composition.

Earth’s atmosphere stores a significant amount of organic carbon as part of the global carbon cycle.

From respiration to nitrogen fixation, iron-containing enzymes catalyze some of the most critical biological processes. These enzymes exploit their complex protein architecture to manipulate the chemical properties of their iron center and execute a diverse array of biochemical reactions. The Bhagi-Damodaran lab is dedicated to elucidating the structural and mechanistic foundations of iron enzyme function and developing small-molecule discovery and computational protein engineering strategies to optimize their biological capabilities.

Bone proteomic methods devised for fields such as archeology and paleontology have been implemented to resolve the challenge of accurate post-mortem interval (PMI), time of death, estimation in forensic investigations. However, most of these methods have been optimized to extract a large variety of proteins without taking into account the laboratory-induced decay and post-translational modifications (PTMs).

Atmospheric aerosol particles both directly and indirectly affect the climate, and the extent of their effects is directly related to the physicochemical properties of the aerosol particle(s).¹ Aerosol particles in the atmosphere can interact directly with incoming radiation and uptake water to activate into cloud droplets.

Medicinal Chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with designing and developing pharmaceutical drugs.