Plastic pollution has reached alarming levels in the environment, particularly in our oceans. From documentary programs such as Blue Planet II, through to media from around the globe, the sheer scale of the problem is now receiving the attention that it deserves. One of the most common plastics, polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, is made from simple monomer building blocks that are linked together via ester bonds, hence the name polyesters.

We have examined the rapid reaction kinetics and spectroscopic properties of the molybdenum-containing, NAD+-dependent FdsABG formate dehydrogenase from C. necator, demonstrating the direct transfer of the substrate Ca hydrogen to the molybdenum center of the enzyme in the course of the reaction.

The Department of Chemistry is excited to announce the groundbreaking for our newest building, the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Research Building, STEM-I.  The new building will house research teams from both the Chemistry Department and the Engineering College, and is strategically designed to facilitate collaboration between students, faculty, and researchers.

Of the three most common Fe-S clusters found in nature, the [4Fe-4S] cluster is the most abundant and accounts for the most diverse functions, ranging from electron transfer to regulation of gene expression and radical generation¹. Solvent accessible [4Fe-4S] clusters are very sensitive to oxidative degradation and as such, are sometimes used as sensors of oxidative stress².

This seminar will address three topics. 1: Protein PTMs that cause or contribute to neurodegenerative disease. 2: Protein PTMs that ameliorate neurodegenerative disease. 3: Cyclic thiosulfinate cross-linkers. These highly tunable S-cross-linkers avoid the toxic dead-end modifications created by previous cross-linkers, making safe in vivo cross-linking possible.

Iron overload (IO) is one of the most common genetic diseases in the U.S. but individuals with the condition typically exhibit few symptoms in the early stages and are often unaware of their condition until it has already progressed to a dangerous level. Untreated, IO can induce cirrhosis and increase risk of liver cancer, cause arthritis, or lead to impotence.

The membranes of infectious fungi and bacteria have emerged as attractive antimicrobial targets due to the relatively rare occurrences of resistance for those drugs active against them. There exists, however, an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms of action for many such membrane-associated small molecule drugs. Using multiple nonlinear microscopy and spectroscopy techniques we are directly probing native small molecule drugs as they interact with the membranes of living bacterial and fungal cells.

Cyclic polymers do not contain end groups, and as a result they demonstrate a number of unique physical properties. For example, the density, refractive index, T_g, viscoelasticity, reptation, and surface properties of cyclic polymers all differ from those of their more common linear analogs. Over the past fifty years a handful of catalysts have been discovered that can create cyclic polymers. In this seminar, four new catalysts will be presented that are capable of creating cyclic polymers.

Transient absorption in the extreme ultraviolet and x-ray spectral regimes is used to probe chemical dynamics on both the femtosecond and attosecond timescales. Laser-produced high-order harmonics in the soft x-ray can investigate dissociating molecules, ring opening, passage through conical intersections, singlet to triplet transitions, and electronic and vibrational coherences.