chemistry newsletter

CHEMISTRY NEWSWAYNE STATE

UNIVERSITY2014

A. Paul and Carol Schaap.

Welcome back to Wayne State University’s chemistry department. As you will see in this update, we are thriving.

Among many developments, the most significant was undoubtedly the $76 million renovation of our chemistry building, which occurred in two phases from 2004-11. We now have a modern, state-of-the-art research facility that is totally different from the building you may remember from your time on campus.

The renovation included all new labs and offices throughout the building. Thanks to the generous support of Paul and Carol Schaap, the building also sports an impressive glass atrium and lecture hall attached to the Cass Avenue entrance. We also have a new central instrument facility named in honor of Lumigen — the company Paul Schaap founded — as well as informal meeting areas designed to increase collaboration among students and faculty. In gratitude for the Schaaps’ gift, the building has been named the A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building.

In this inaugural edition of our department’s newsletter, you’ll have a chance to hear from

the Schaaps. You may remember Paul as a faculty member in the organic division and Carol served as assistant to the chair for many years. They created the Schaap Endowed Chair in Organic Chemistry, the Schaap Scholar awards to support the research activities of top faculty in the department and a generous endowment to support outstanding graduate students. They have been extraordinarily generous to the department in recent years, and their gifts have enabled us to recruit and retain the best faculty and students and keep us in the top echelon of academic chemistry departments.

The story behind the Schaaps’ success and philanthropy illustrates a key aspect of the contemporary research university that, in my opinion, is often overlooked when justifications for the university’s research enterprise are made to the state and to the public at large — the significance of intellectual property stemming from faculty research and inventions that may lead to important commercial opportunities.

In Paul Schaap’s case, observations made in his research lab by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and supported by WSU technology transfer led directly to the creation of Lumigen, which is still in operation and continues to generate revenue and taxes in Southeast Michigan while providing high-tech, high-wage jobs — none of which would exist without the initial research done in our department. Of course, Lumigen is not the only spinoff company stemming from research in our department. The first was Ash-Stevens, a still-thriving enterprise currently under the able leadership of Steven Munk, son of Dr. Art Munk, who obtained his Ph.D. in our department in 1959. More recently, technology developed by Professor John Santa Lucia led to the creation of DNA Software.

Welcome to the first edition of Chemistry News

This translation of basic research to intellectual property and beyond was made possible by the enactment of the Bayh-Dole legislation in the early ’80s which, for the first time, allowed researchers and universities to benefit from discoveries supported by federal research funds. This story is repeated at many other research universities in the country, and it has opened the door to benefits and economic development not previously possible.

This underlying theme of research with potential commercial applications is seen throughout this newsletter. In the following pages, you’ll read about Professor David Crich, holder of the Schaap Endowed Chair in Organic Chemistry, whose research on new antibacterial agents is addressing a dilemma that is of concern to all. With few exceptions, most pharmaceutical houses are not aggressively pursuing new and more potent antibiotics, with reasons often ascribed to low profit margins with these types of compounds. But equally important is that most of the “low-hanging fruit” has been picked already. Work such as Crich’s offers a potential solution to address this dilemma.

You’ll also read about Professor Charles Winter’s research into new methods for depositing thin films of material — another example of basic research leading to inventions that may have practical applications in the microelectronics industry.

These lab-to-industry developments are not confined to faculty research alone. Alumni like Surendra Gupta, who started a successful company in St. Louis following doctoral studies in our department, are doing great work throughout industry. And our long-dormant ACS Student Affiliates chapter, recently reborn, is attempting to make WSU’s the top chapter in the country.Judging by their many activities in just the past year, I’m putting money on them to succeed.

I hope you enjoy reconnecting with your department through this newsletter. I encourage you to visit or to contact me or any of our faculty with questions and comments.

– James H. Rigby, Professor and Chair

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY // CHEMISTRY NEWS

Interview with A. Paul Schaap02

FACULTY PROFILE: Crich influences students worldwide

06

RESEARCH FOCUS: Winter leads the way in ALD research

08

What’s happening in chemistry?12

STUDENT FOCUS: Student organization brings love of chemistry to campus, city

10

ALUMNI PROFILE: Alumnus shows entrepreneurial spirit

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A. Paul Schaap, founder of Lumigen Inc., has made his mark on Wayne State’s chemistry department. In addition to scholarship awards and endowments, it was a donation from Schaap and his wife, Carol, that led to the recent renovation and expansion of the chemistry building. Completed in 2012, it now boasts state-of-the-art laboratories and lecture facilities, a four-story atrium, and several collaboration areas. In gratitude, the building was renamed in his honor. Schaap also provided the funds to help restore the building’s instrument center, now known as the Lumigen Instrument Center.

Schaap has a long history with Wayne State. He joined the faculty in 1970 following his education at Hope College and Harvard, where he obtained his Ph.D. He was on the faculty at Wayne State for 30 years, and saw his research with luminescence-generating 1,2-dioxetanes have important application in medical diagnostics. To meet that need, he formed Lumigen with the support of Wayne State. Located in Southfield, Michigan, the company is now one of the world’s largest suppliers of chemiluminescent reagents to the clinical immunodiagnostics market.

Schaap returned to Wayne State recently to talk about his illustrious career and current relationship with the university.

WSU: I understand your love for chemistry began as a child. What drew you to this field?

PS: One of the influences was Gilbert Chemistry Sets. This is back when the sets had real experiments and chemicals, and things that were dangerous and things that are probably no longer put in the chemistry sets. But they were fun. The other thing that really intrigued me, like a lot of kids, was the luminescence of fireflies. I grew up in Indiana, where there were lots of fireflies, and we’d catch them and let them go, but it always intrigued me how the firefly generated its luminescence. Once I got into high school and started taking science classes, I was particularly interested in chemistry and stimulated by a fantastic high school chemistry teacher, Clyde Mott. He was short in stature, always wore a white lab coat and developed experiments that were outside the textbook — you might even call them research experiments.

WSU: How did college further prepare you for a career in chemistry?

PS: I spent three years at Hope College with Professor Douglas Neckers in his laboratory doing undergraduate research. It led to refereed publications. It was unbelievably exciting to see, for the first time, our results in national publications.

It was during my career at Harvard with Professor Paul Bartlett that I first got involved with compounds called 1,2-dioxetanes, which generate luminescence and are believed to be the intermediate responsible for the luminescence of fireflies. As part of my research with him, I was able to make one of these dioxetanes for the first time. It didn’t generate much luminescence, but it did some. And it was very unstable — almost to the point of being explosive — but it was the beginning of this whole area of research for me.

Interview with A. Paul Schaap

03


WSU: What brought you to Wayne State?

PS: Dr. Neckers knew Carl Johnson here on the faculty very well and said to Carl, ‘You ought to interview and take a look at this young man, Schaap.’ I came here and gave a lecture and interview and was offered a position as an assistant professor. That was in 1970.

When I was interviewing, I believe there were three universities in the entire country — only three — that had positions for organic chemistry faculty. One was at Wayne State. I interviewed at the other two, and before I had heard anything about them, I accepted this position. It’s strictly because of the quality of the faculty who were here — the faculty who would become my colleagues. I just recognized that there was something special about the culture of this department.

WSU: How did your research here lead to the founding of Lumigen?

PS: My graduate work at Harvard with Professor Bartlett involved making

one of these molecules, a dioxetane. It became the focus of my academic career here. And over the course of 16 years, collaborating with undergraduate students, graduate students and post-docs, we worked together to make many of these dioxetanes and study their properties. Some of them turned out to be a little more stable, some had a little more luminescence. But none of the molecules had all of the properties we desired. But after 16 years [July 1986], we were able to make the molecule that had all the properties that we wanted.

Additional derivatives of this molecule became useful in medical diagnostic tests. Companies began to get in touch with us asking for samples that they could use to test and see if it improved their assays. And then they said, ‘Let’s find a way to obtain commercial quantities of your material.’ That led me to form the company, Lumigen Inc., and then to approach the university about collaborating with us.

Wayne State became one of the key shareholders at the start of the company.

They were kind enough to lease some of my laboratory space to me so that we could incubate the company in this building. This was before the days of TechTown and there just was no laboratory space anywhere for us to start the company. It was a very satisfying relationship. And they also were willing to take a chance on a faculty member — myself — who had no business experience, and give me and my colleagues a chance to commercialize the technology. And for that, I remain extremely grateful.

WSU: You’ve been a major supporter of Wayne State. Most notably, the chemistry building was renovated and expanded with substantial help from you. Why was this project so important?

PS: In the 30 years from when I started to when I retired, this building and the laboratories in particular had really begun to show their age… It had become difficult to attract students, difficult to retain faculty members. So this building was in need of total renovation which, of course, was a very expensive proposition, but it needed to be done. The university issued bonds for the renovation, and Carol and I funded the expansion. Today, we’re sitting in a chemistry building that is fully renovated.In addition, we have some spaces that we didn’t have years ago. And within the building, there are some elements that are also new and very important. These are interaction areas. Each floor has a special area that’s now set aside. They have windows, and are dedicated to the interaction of students, faculty and post-docs from different groups so that they can come together and talk about science. This is the way modern science occurs; it’s no longer stay in your own laboratory and be in what’s called a silo, but scientists are urged to collaborate, to interact, to develop joint programs.

WSU: What are you most grateful for, looking back on your own education? What was essential to making you who you are today?

PS: That’s an easy one — scholarships. I would not have been able to go to Hope College but for scholarships. My dad was a Presbyterian minister; it goes without saying they don’t make a lot of money. And so to go to college was possible only because of scholarships from Hope College and from people I’ve never met.

Schaap demonstrates the luminescence experiment that ultimately led to the founding

of Lumigen Inc.

That’s at the heart of the philanthropy that Carol and I do; it’s scholarships at all levels. It’s trying to give back in a way that helped me.

WSU: Have you been able to see how specific students have benefited from those scholarships?

PS: Sure. We provide scholarships to students at an inner-city charter school who are graduating from the eighth grade, and it allows them to go on to really high-quality high schools. Some of these students are now graduating from these high schools and going on to college. I met a brother and a sister who are both now at Kalamazoo College and doing extremely well. That’s the end result that you want to see.

WSU: You’ve been a supporter of Detroit’s revitalization. Why is it so important that both Detroit and Wayne State continue to thrive?

PS: Wayne State, of course, is and has been ever since it started, in the middle of Detroit. So it is linked to the city, and it’s fair to say that the city has benefited from the presence of Wayne State in its midst. I believe it’s the intellectual center of the city of Detroit. I believe it is an unbelievably important economic engine for the city of Detroit. On the same hand, the city of Detroit has a huge impact on the quality of the existence of the university. The two institutions — the city and the university — are linked. So it’s important that Wayne State do whatever it can to help the city of Detroit.

WSU: What would you tell someone who was interested in making a gift or donation to Wayne State?

PS: Find something at the university that you’re passionate about. For me, it’s chemistry, it’s science, it’s students. But for someone else, it might be engineering. It might be business. It might be dance. It might be medicine. But find something that you’re excited about, that you’re passionate about, and then find a way to make a difference. Whether it’s to improve facilities, to set up scholarships, to set up endowed chairs, there are lots of ways to help and lots of ways to take what you’re interested in to the next level. But make sure you start off by finding something that you’re passionate about.

This transcript is edited from a longer interview.

Carol Schaap’s time at Wayne State began almost a decade before her future husband would come to campus. During her time here, she saw the university change dramatically.

WSU: What brought you to Wayne State?

CS: I was working in the legal department, patent division, of Parke Davis, which at that time was a huge pharmaceutical company located on the Detroit River. One of the chairman’s Ph.D. students was an attorney in the patent department, and he approached me and said, ‘My professor, Cal Stevens, has become chairman of the chemistry department and he is looking for a new secretary. Would you be interested?’ I said, ‘I think I would like to move forward in my career, so I’m in.’ So I was interviewed by Professor Stevens and hired, and became his secretary in 1961.

WSU: How long were you at Wayne State? How did your career grow?

I was at Wayne State approximately 30 years. I worked in the chemistry department for 18 years. I met a lot of wonderful people, got familiar with what was going on on campus. Then I moved to the upper administration. Professor Stevens became vice president of research and asked me to go with him — at that time, we were almost buddies — so I became the secretary to the vice president of research. Then he became the interim provost and I became secretary to the provost. Cal left that post, but I continued my service as secretary to the provost, and then

at one point the executive secretary to President David Adamany moved on to another position and I was asked if I would be interested in moving to the president’s office. This is one of the top positions in the secretarial world in the city of Detroit, so I said, ‘Sure, I’d be interested.’ So David interviewed me and I became his executive secretary. That’s the position I left when I retired.

WSU: What was the university like at that time? How did it change?

CS: It was certainly smaller than it is now, with not as many buildings. In fact, Second Avenue ran right through the middle of campus — what is now Gullen Mall. Second Avenue had traffic running through it with mud parking lots where the employees used to park.

There are so many more buildings now. David Adamany, I think, was responsible for the beautification of campus, because he was going around almost daily taking notes of flowers and trees. He just did a marvelous job of updating facilities and really beautifying the campus.

WSU: What kept you at Wayne State for 30 years?

I liked the atmosphere and the collegiality and what good the university was doing in educating the students. Students are the university. In the city of Detroit, I’m sure I would have had an opportunity at some place like General Motors or Chrysler or one of the other corporations, but I’m glad I chose Wayne State.

05Carol Schaap returns to Wayne State


Crich influences students worldwide

In a prestigious career that’s taken him around the world, Schaap Professor of Organic Chemistry David Crich seems to have found his home at Wayne State University.

Born and raised in Chesterfield, England, Crich came to WSU in 2007 after 17 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he rose to the rank of liberal arts and sciences distinguished professor of organic chemistry. Before that, he spent five years as a lecturer in the Christopher Ingold laboratories at University College London.

Over the course of his career, Crich has graduated some 60 Ph.D. candidates from his lab — perhaps none more memorable than the 10 students he brought with him to Wayne State from UIC in 2007. The 12-person group — plus their children, spouses and significant others — formed a caravan of chemists on the road from Chicago to Detroit, with Crich leading the way in a U-Haul truck packed with his students’ belongings and lab equipment.

In 2009, Crich was offered the position of director of the Institut de Chimie de

FACULTY PROFILE06

Crich, pictured at the Great Wall of China, has seen his career take him around the globe.

Substances Naturalles (ICSN) in Gif sur Yvette, France — the same laboratory where he conducted his undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral research from 1979-85. Unable to pass up the opportunity, Crich moved his family overseas. But this time, his team of nomadic Ph.D.s couldn’t make the journey. The research group stayed intact at WSU, and through countless video conferences, phone conversations and visits, Crich continued to lead the group from France, ultimately graduating all 10 students — two of whom have recently been appointed to faculty positions themselves.

After only two years at the ICSN, Crich decided to return to Wayne State.

“I wanted to come back here, and I owed it to WSU and Paul and Carol Schaap to finish what I set out to do,” Crich said.

At WSU, Crich has established a laboratory of 14 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows — with more on the way. He also teaches a variety of chemistry courses, conducts cutting-edge research and secures grant funding to support it. He’s renowned for his NIH-supported work in carbohydrate chemistry and reactivity, which enables complex oligosaccharide synthesis for drug design applications. His research has brought him many accolades over the years, most recently a Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society and the prestigious Haworth Memorial Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry in the United Kingdom.

“I’ve never had a ‘real’ job,” Crich said. “I’ve always been a faculty member and a researcher, and I consider myself very lucky in that respect. It’s great fun.”

At the moment, a major focus of the Crich lab is a collaboration with the University of Zürich (UZH). Working with colleagues Erik Böttger and Andrea Vasella, Crich and his team are trying to develop new, less-toxic antibiotics to target drug-resistant bacteria.

Their research focuses on aminoglycosides — large molecules that are among the earliest and most widely used antibiotics — and reducing their propensity to cause ototoxicity, or hearing loss.

Crich explained that as many as 20 percent of patients who take a sustained course of aminoglycosides suffer some degree of permanent hearing loss. Böttger and Vasella determined that this amino-induced ototoxicity arises through the binding of the drug to human mitochondrial ribosomal RNA. Crich and his team design and synthesize modified aminoglycosides to reduce and eliminate this side effect.

“We have a variety of tests that allow us to screen for binding to mitochondrial and bacterial ribosomes, so we’re able to optimize our compounds on that basis,” Crich said.

Because this research deals with large, carbohydrate-like molecules, Crich’s expertise is crucial. The project also gives his students unparalleled training in organic chemistry and the opportunity to pioneer new discoveries in the field. It’s a passion for these discoveries that’s kept Crich in the same profession for more than 30 years.

“We should always be looking for new ways to do things and be on the lookout for the unexpected,” he said. “I sit and plan synthetic schemes, and when they work, it’s good. But for me, the most exciting thing is when what I planned goes wrong.”

Crich’s career has taken him across states, countries, continents and back again. But his dedication to the field and his students has remained constant.

“I came from a working-class background,” he said. “A lot of people helped me along the way, so I’m always happy when I can do that for others.”

07


Over a little more than three years, the Wayne State University American Chemical Society Student Affiliates (ACSSA) went from a fizzled student group with just five members to a liquid nitrogen-toting, gas bubble-popping powerhouse. Now, with more than 70 members, the ACSSA is one of the largest student groups on campus, and has scored itself a few national awards.

After lying inactive for a few years, the group was re-established in 2011 by students looking to get more out of their education and time at Wayne State. The organization’s dramatic

resurgence is due, in part, to its energetic leadership and dedication to showcasing how fun chemistry can be.

The ACSSA has organized several annual events throughout the university community to provide a fun and engaging introduction to chemistry. Curling with dry ice in the A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building lobby and making ice cream with liquid nitrogen are just some of the ways the group has garnered attention from more than just science fans. With members majoring in everything from biochemistry to English, this all-inclusive organization connects with a diverse range of people. ACSSA leadership says that’s precisely what makes the group so valuable.

“We’re constantly learning from each other,” said current organization president Katherine Mullan. “The only requirement to join is that you love chemistry and want to get involved.”

WSU administration attributes a new sense of departmental unity to the ACSSA. Matt Allen, associate professor of chemistry and one of the group’s faculty advisors, fondly recalled the recent dry ice curling competition, which pit students against faculty members.

“It was amazing to see all these different people bring this department together in one place having a great time,” said Allen. “I can’t say enough about this group.”

Balancing fun and games with professional development and networking is paramount to the ACSSA’s mission. Last year, the group organized networking mixers, several chemical company site tours and the For the Love of Chemistry symposium, which focused on bringing professionals and other local American Chemical Society (ACS)

Student organization brings love of chemistry to campus, city08

ACSSA members Joe Degg and Chandni Patel show how to make ice

cream using liquid nitrogen.

STUDENT FOCUS

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student chapters together to discuss the job market and the value of a chemistry degree. Outreach events, such as the annual hands-on chemistry demonstration at the Detroit Zoo’s Zoo Boo, also help the group spread its love of science to a new generation of potential chemists.

This hard work has not gone unnoticed. In March, the organization was recognized at the ACS national meeting for its outstanding activities as an ACS chapter — an accomplishment that the team’s student leaders say is due to the immense support they receive from Wayne State faculty and administration.

“The only reason we’re able to do half of these events is because we have a department that believes in us and a school that supports us,” said ACSSA treasurer Susan White. “Dr. Matthew Allen will answer any question we have, 24 hours a day. Dr. Mary Kay Pflum is so supportive of us, always making sure we don’t burn out. Dr. James Rigby has been on our

side since day one, and the Dean of Students Office goes out of its way to make sure we have the financial support we need.”

But more than the support that comes from the university, ACSSA members value the backing their fellow students provide each other. “We don’t all come from families or backgrounds where we can go and talk about the things we’re learning here,” said White. “This gives me a place where I can talk about all the crazy things we chemistry students go through.”

“This group is so much more than just another student organization to me,” Mullan echoed. “This is a mentor group, a support group and a community of people who truly understand me.”

To find out more about the ACSSA, visit chem.wayne.edu/acs-sa/American_Chemical_Society_Static_Page/American_Chemical_Society.html or the American Chemical Society WSU Student Affiliates Facebook page.

Members encourage fellow students to get involved learning more about chemistry

during several events on and off campus. From left: Susan White, Shapnil Bhuiyan,

Riane Dixon and Katherine Mullan.


Charles Winter doesn’t want to make predictable discoveries. He wants to make waves.

“I don’t want to make evolutionary steps; I want to make disruptive ones,” said Winter, professor and associate chair of Wayne State’s chemistry department. “Advancements that change the way people think about and do things.”

Winter is a leading researcher in the field of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) — a process for

growing thin films using chemical compounds — and the work done by his research team in the area of growing metallic films using his processes is leading to major advancements in the microelectronics industry.

Since its development in Finland in the 1970s, ALD has been recognized as a useful tool for developing thin films and improving microelectronic components such as transistors. Through ALD, films only grow a monolayer at a time, following the contours of the substrate and allowing manufacturers to calculate the film’s thickness precisely.

“We recently discovered a general class of strong reducing agents, and we can now deposit metals by ALD that haven’t been possible before, such as first-row transition

metals and difficult metals like aluminum. This is having a very large impact on the field. It’s early, but I’m optimistic that our reagents will become widely used in the microelectronics industry,” Winter said.

Growing metallic films using ALD is a complex process. Currently, only three universities in the world — Wayne State, Harvard and the University of Helsinki — have vibrant research programs in this area. Winter said his ALD expertise and background as a synthetic chemist give him unique insight into this growing focus area.

“You have to make molecules that have a very specific set of properties, including thermal stability, volatility and high reactivity toward a second reagent to get the material you want,” he said. “No one knows how to do that; you have to learn it by discovery.”

Winter works closely with Wayne State’s Technology Commercialization Office and industry partners to transition his discoveries to the marketplace, interacting with chemical suppliers, tool manufacturers and microelectronics fabrication plants to ensure that the research conducted in Midtown finds its way to end users.

Winter was recognized for his research at the 2014 ALD Conference in Kyoto, Japan, where he took home a Best Innovation Award for his paper, “Silyl Elimination Reactions in the Atomic Layer Deposition of Titanium, Zinc and Other Element Films.” Never one to rest on his laurels, he said there is still a lot of work to be done.

“I hope that within five years we have ALD precursors and processes for all reasonable metals in the periodic table,” Winter said. “We’re on the right track, and providing that chemistry will be a huge service to the ALD world and the microelectronics industry.”

Winter leads the way in ALD research

FACULTY PROFILE

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Mark Salay, a former Ph.D. student of Winter’s, conducts work in Wayne State’s ALD lab. Salay is now employed at Applied Materials.

RESEARCH FOCUS


Surendra Gupta came to the United States in 1963 — on a very slow, 23-day boat trip — to earn a Ph.D. at Wayne State on the recommendation of one of his professors at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, India. Two key things happened at Wayne State that would forever change the course of his life: a dissertation topic focusing on carbohydrate chemistry, and meeting the woman who would eventually become his wife.

His specialization helped him get his first industrial job in Boston. He applied to one of only two radioactive carbohydrate chemical supply companies in the world at the time — New England Nuclear — that was looking for a group leader for their carbohydrate group. Because of his specialization, he got the job supervising a group of seven people and learned a great deal about radioactive chemicals and just how profitable they can be.

“No one, not even my advisor, thought I would succeed — they were all shocked when I passed my Ph.D. qualifying exam,” said Gupta.

After six years, Dupont bought out the company, and Gupta left for a smaller company, Pathfinder Labs in St. Louis, where he was a group leader involved with

not only R&D and production, but also marketing. Because of the added responsibilities, Gupta was able to attend numerous conferences, where he built up a list of contacts within the industry. During his first two years with Pathfinder Labs, Gupta grew annual sales volume from $60,000 to $250,000. In 1983, the company was suffering financial difficulties due to the downfall in the U.S. economy. Gupta wasn’t getting the resources he felt he needed and decided to start his own company.

“Last year was an important year for me,” Gupta recalled. “It marked the 30-year anniversary of my company and 50 years that I’ve been in the United States.”

Coming from a family of business owners, Gupta understood the importance of operating with a low budget. He started American Radiolabeled Chemical (ARC) Inc. in 1983 with a small business loan of $60,000 that he paid off within the first year. Without any advertising or marketing, Gupta convinced customers that the quality of ARC’s chemicals was as good as what they were currently buying and he offered them at a quarter of their cost. Word spread rapidly, and so did ARC’s sales volumes. In 1985, Gupta moved his company from downtown St. Louis to a five-acre parcel outside of town where they have grown to five buildings, 25,000 square feet of office space, 10,000 square feet of production and 35 employees. ARC serves customers worldwide, with distributors in 30 countries, and has grown to become the largest catalog business in the world. The company’s catalog (the largest in the industry) contains more than 5,000 radiolabeled and unlabeled chemicals for life science research — 75 percent of which are exclusively available through ARC. In addition to catalog items, ARC offers a wide range of custom synthesis services using carbon-14 and tritium. ARC is a debt-free, family-owned business.

This article was previously published in Wayne State’s alumni magazine.

Alumnus shows entrepreneurial spirit ALUMNI

PROFILE 11

Gupta (right) and his wife, Karen, met at Wayne State and founded ARC in 1983.

FACULTY NEWSStephanie L. Brock named ACS fellow

Inorganic Chemistry Professor Stephanie Brock was among a select group of scientists named to the prestigious 2014 American Chemical Society (ACS) Fellows program. Only 99 scientists across the globe were inducted this year. Brock joins two other WSU faculty members — James H. Rigby (2010) and H. Bernard Schlegel (2012) — as an ACS fellow. Brock has been recognized for her research work on the synthesis of nanoscale materials, which have functional properties that may potentially address a number of global technological and societal challenges in the areas of renewable/clean energy, environmental remediation, data storage and refrigeration/microclimate control. Her work with Wayne State’s GO-GIRL program was also recognized by the society. Brock was inducted at a special event held at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco on August 11.

David Coleman retires

Recently, a large group gathered at Detroit’s Bayview Yacht Club to celebrate the retirement of Professor David Coleman. Coleman joined the department in 1977 following Ph.D. and post-doc studies at the University of Wisconsin. During his tenure, he graduated 14 Ph.D. students in the field of analytical atomic spectroscopy, as well as numerous M.S. and B.S. candidates. He also served as associate chairman of the department. For the past 12 years, he was director of the Lumigen Instrument Center

and saw that facility through its largest period of development — including serving as PI for multiple new instruments and overseeing the design and implementation of a $3 million renovation. For three years, he also served as director of the WSU Nanofabrication Laboratory (nFab). Coleman also played key roles in every aspect of the $80 million renovation of the A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building; he continues to informally consult for the LIC. David and his wife, Patricia, plan to spend time at their retirement home in northern Minnesota and enjoy time with their children and grandchildren. David also enjoys playing jazz trombone with various ensembles, large and small. He said he is grateful to the chemistry department for a wonderful career.

RESEARCH GROUP UPDATES Young-Hoon AhnAssistant ProfessorBiochemistry

Young-Hoon Ahn joined the chemistry faculty in 2012, following post-doctoral work in Philip Cole’s lab at Johns Hopkins University. His research group focuses on developing novel chemical tools for understanding complex oxidative protein modifications that may occur in cancer and cardiovascular disease. His group recently reported the new chemical method for detecting glutathionylation by engineering glutathione synthetase enzymes in the Journal of American Chemical Society. This new approach has great potential for understanding protein glutathionylation in pathological diseases in the future. Ahn received B.S. and

M.S. degrees in chemistry from Pohang University of Science and Technology in Korea in 1999 and 2001. He then moved to the United States and received his Ph.D. in chemistry at New York University under the guidance of Young-Tae Chang.

Matthew AllenAssociate ProfessorInorganic Chemistry

Research from Matthew Allen’s group involves the aqueous chemistry of lanthanides or has relevance in medical imaging. Over the last few years, the group’s research assistants have made many exciting discoveries and received several awards. Zhijin Lin discovered that water-exchange rate trends are reversed in ionic liquids compared to water or organic solvents, and Levi Ekanger found a way to detect changes in oxidation using europium complexes encapsulated in liposomes with magnetic resonance imaging that is independent of the concentration of europium. These recently published findings have implications in the fields of catalysis and disease diagnosis, and are supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A complete list of publications can be found at chem.wayne.edu/allengroup.

Andrew Feig Associate ProfessorBiochemistry

Great things have been happening in the Feig lab over the last two years. Four students defended their doctorates and moved on to positions across the country. Also, several new grants have helped fund laboratory

What’s happening in chemistry?If it’s been awhile since you’ve checked in with us, you may be curious about what’s happening in our classrooms and labs. Here’s a peak at some of the latest developments happening throughout our department. 12

13research and related educational initiatives, including the recent NIH-funded REBUILD Detroit grant — a $21 million collaboration between Wayne State University, University of Detroit Mercy, Marygrove College and Wayne County Community College District to promote institutional changes at all four Detroit institutions to enhance the educational experiences of minority students and improve retention within STEM, improve graduation rates across campus and more successful articulation between schools. Two new graduate students — Brianna Jackman and Adam Boyden — joined the lab last November to carry on their work with Clostridial toxins.

Federico A. RabuffettiAssistant Professor Inorganic Chemistry

The Rabuffetti group focuses on the development of luminescent solid-state materials and nanomaterials employed in bioimaging (fluorescent biomarkers) and solid-state lighting (phosphors for white LEDs). Both topics are at the forefront of fundamental and applied research relevant to medical imaging and diagnostics and energy conversion. The group seeks to develop new

classes of functional materials that surpass the current state-of-the-art via a precise control over the materials’ composition and morphology. Once in hand, these materials will be characterized using complementary spectroscopic techniques to achieve a comprehensive description of composition-structure-function relationships. This information is critical to develop materials by design as it enables understanding of the effect of chemical composition on the behavior of functional chemical units. Structural studies will be an integral part of the research performed in the group and systematically guide synthetic efforts.

Sarah TrimpinAssociate ProfessorAnalytical Chemistry

In research supported by an NSF CAREER award, Trimpin’s research group discovered new methods for converting compounds such as drugs, lipids, peptides, proteins and synthetic polymers into gas-phase ions for characterization using mass spectrometry. These new ionization methods have advantages of simplicity and speed of analysis relative to the traditional ionization technologies

that previously opened new areas for materials characterization using mass spectrometry and earned the inventors a portion of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Trimpin group discovered astonishing matrix compounds that lift even large proteins into gas-phase ions simply by exposure to the vacuum inherent with any mass spectrometer. Trimpin has applied for several patents on this work. The fundamental research resulted in another NSF award to continue studying the fundamentals of this unprecedented ionization process. In November 2013, Trimpin and a collaborator started MSTM LLC, a company dedicated to converting these inventions to products with the goal of replacing current ionization technology in areas such as proteomics and lipidomics, and to eventually open new areas such as clinical analyses and homeland security using Trimpins’ new technology with mass spectrometry. Trimpin has received numerous accolades from industry, professional societies and Wayne State University. She recently accepted a secondary appointment in Wayne State’s Cardiovascular Research Institute.

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Wayne State University Board of GovernorsDebbie Dingell, chair, Gary S. Pollard, vice chair, Eugene Driker, Diane L. Dunaskiss, Paul E. Massaron, David A. Nicholson, Sandra Hughes O’Brien, Kim Trent, M. Roy Wilson, ex officio

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Thank you for reading the first edition of the Wayne State University Department of Chemistry newsletter. We look forward to providing you with the latest updates on our faculty, staff, students and researchers. If you are a former student and would like to tell us what you’re up to, or if you have any suggestions for future editions of this newsletter, please email us at [email protected] or write to:

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