elen M. Berman, Rutgers Board of

Governors Professor ofChemistry and Chemi-

cal Biology, has receivedmany honors over the yearsfor her achievements in build-ing what she calls a “scientific collaboratory,” the ResearchCollaboratory for StructuralBioinformatics (RCSB) ProteinData Bank (PDB).

The PDB has been head-quartered at Rutgers since1998, but Berman’s training as a scientist and community organizer really started inBrooklyn, N.Y. long before anyone envisioned the world-wide success of the data bank.

“My father, Dr. David Bern-stein, was a professor at NYUMedical School and a surgeonwho practiced medicine inBrooklyn for over 40 years andmy mother, Dorothy, was hisoffice manager and a commu-nity organizer on various healthinitiatives,” said Berman. “Shewas given the Mayor’s Volun-teer Action Award for her workin health education and preventive medicine. So I liketo think I have a little bit ofboth of them in me.”

The American Society forBiochemistry and Molecular Biology recently presentedBerman with the DeLano

Award for Computational Bio-sciences, which acknowledgestechnological innovation thatenhances research in the lifesciences at the molecular leveland is readily available to thescientific community.

Berman, now a Princetonresident, was raised in Brooklynand studied Chemistry atBarnard College before earninga Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh. Berman worked atFox Chase Cancer Center for 20 years, researching nucleicacid crystallography and drugnucleic acid interactions. Shemoved to Rutgers in 1989, expanded her program to in-clude the study of the structuresof collagen and protein-nucleicacid complexes, and at thesame time developed structuraldatabases and ontologies.

“Structures of proteins beganto emerge in the late 1950sand 1960s and there weregroups of people who werevery interested in seeing if it was possible to understandhow proteins form into theirfinal conformation,” Berman recalls. “I began to talk to a lotof people in my communityabout archiving those structuresso we could have easy accessto them. I was absolutely convinced that archiving andopen sharing of these structures

would enable scientists to understand the relationshipsbetween sequence, structureand function and their impor-tance in health and disease.”

In the 1970s Berman beganworking with colleagues to establish the PDB archive atBrookhaven National Laboratoryas a place to store and sharedata about the 3D structures ofproteins and nucleic acids. In1998, when the RCSB wonfunding for PDB and moved it to Rutgers, the data bank had9,000 archived structures. Today,PDB uses the most advanced

continued on page 11

R U T G E R S , T H E S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W J E R S E Y • P I S C ATA W A Y

Chemistry & Chemical Biology News

SUMMER 2013VOLUME 14

This newsletter is published foralumni and friends by the Department of Chemistry

and Chemical BiologyRutgers, The State University

of New Jersey610 Taylor RoadPiscataway, NJ 08854

For questions or suggestions,please contact:

Roger A. Jones, ChairPhone: 732/445-1554Email: chemchair@rutgers.eduWeb: chem.rutgers.edu

Coordinators: Karen Fowler and Cris Pannullo

Faculty Liaisons: Kathryn Uhrichand Eric Garfunkel

Writer/Editor: Fred Feiner

PDB Supports Scientific Advances Worldwide

Rutgers Board of Governors Professorof Chemistry and Chemical BiologyHelen M. Berman

H

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Welcome to the Summer2013 edition of Chemistry &Chemical Biology (CCB) News!It has been a particularly excitingyear for the department with

plans moving forward at arapid pace for a new homefor CCB. Later this year, we will announce all thedetails on the new buildingso watch for future announcements on this exciting development.

It would appear thenew facilities are comingnot a moment too soon, as the number of studentsenrolled in chemistrycourses at Rutgers contin-

ues to grow. In the last five years,the number of students in Rut-gers chemistry courses has risenfrom 4,800 to 6,900 per semes-ter. With that kind of demand forCCB education, we continue toseek out new ways to help ourstudents advance, including de-velopment of a novel e-learningsystem that will make its debutthis Fall. Led by Professor DarrinYork, this innovative project prom-ises to be a significant resourcefor faculty and students alike andis featured on page 8.

With the increasing demandfor chemistry at Rutgers, I amthankful that we continue to attract and retain some of thefinest faculty anywhere. It isnoteworthy that ProfessorsKiBum Lee and Joseph Marcotri-giano were recently promoted toAssociate Professors with tenure,and Lawrence Williams was pro-moted to Professor I. These arethree rising stars in our depart-ment with significant research,teaching, and leadership portfo-lios. I look forward to their futurewith CCB. I am sure you will joinme in wishing them continuedexcellence at Rutgers.

Our faculty continues toachieve great success in secur-

Chemistry & Chemical Biology P I S C A T A W A Y

2

ing funding for new and ongoingresearch on some of the mostimportant issues affecting our society. Richard Ebright, Board ofGovernors Professor of Chemistryand Laboratory Director at theWaksman Institute of Microbiol-ogy, has been selected to receivea National Institutes of HealthMERIT Award totaling $1.5 millionto $3 million for a project titledBacterial Transcription Complexes.The project is being supported bythe National Institute for GeneralMedical Sciences. The MERITAward will fund years 25 through29, and provided satisfactoryprogress, years 30 to 34 of thismulti-year project.

Other funding news comesfrom Professor Alan Goldman,who recently received a$201,700 one-year grant fromChevron for the development ofcatalysts for the conversion ofmethane (natural gas) to liquids;Assistant Professor Deirdre O’Carroll, who received a$230,764 two-year grant fromNSF for the theoretical and exper-imental design of multifunctionalplasmonic electrodes for poly-mer-based optoelectronics; andAssociate Professor Daniel Seidel,who was awarded an NSF grantfor $420,000 over three years to help advance the field ofasymmetric catalysis through exploration of conceptually newand underdeveloped methods of substrate activation.

Our students also continue toachieve great success. The recentJean Wilson Day UndergraduateResearch Symposium poster dis-play of undergraduate researchreinforced the tremendous contri-butions our students make everyday. These contributions were further underscored during theyear-end awards ceremony alsohighlighted in this issue.

Board of Governors Profes-sor of Chemistry and Chemical

Biology Helen M. Berman was recently honored by the Ameri-can Society for Biochemistry andMolecular Biology for her manycontributions to the field of com-putational biosciences as notedon page 1. And the researchteam headed by Chemistry Pro-fessor Kathryn Uhrich has devel-oped an exciting controlleddelivery system called PolyMor-phine that has the potential toimprove patient care and savehealthcare costs at the sametime. You will want to read aboutthe exciting details of this re-search on page 7.

Finally, the integration of Rutgers with the University ofMedicine and Dentistry of NewJersey will be formalized on July 1,a historic milestone marking thelargest reorganization of New Jersey’s university system indecades. For Rutgers, the integra-tion results in the addition of twomedical schools, a osteopathicmedical school, dental school,nursing school, comprehensivecancer institute, graduate schoolof biomedical sciences, school ofhealth related professions, anduniversity behavioral health care.These added components, alongwith existing health related entitiesat Rutgers, will constitute a power-ful academic health center, result-ing in enhanced prestige, greateraccess to federal research funding,and coordination between CCBresearchers and life science translational and clinical efforts.

The future is indeed quitebright for Rutgers and CCB. Wethank all of you for your supportand look forward to the great opportunities for growth and part-nership that lie on the horizon.

Sincerely,Roger A. JonesProfessor and Chair

“Our faculty continues to achieve

great success in securing funding

for new and ongoing research.”

New Home on the Horizon, CCB Continues to Grow

Cris

Pann

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joint Rutgers-PrincetonNanotechnology for Clean

Energy graduate training pro-gram is providing students with

the opportunity to develop rela-tionships with noted institutionsand researchers in Africa. Fundedby the National Science Founda-tion, this Integrative Graduate Education Research Traineeship(IGERT) program is a five-year, $3 million venture focusing onnanoscale energy technology development with a special em-phasis on educational exchangebetween U.S. and African universi-ties. Recently, some studentshave taken advantage of this pro-gram by visiting and collaboratingwith their African counterparts asthey pursue their research.

This December, Chemistryand Chemical Biology studentAleksandra Biedron spent time in the Ethiopian capital of AddisAbaba. Biedron was selected toparticipate in the first Materials Research School of the Joint U.S.-Africa Materials Institute (JUAMI)held at Addis Ababa University.The program brought together

approximately 50 graduate students and early-career materi-als researchers from across theUnited States and East Africa, aswell as 15 internationally recog-nized instructors, for two weeks of lectures, problem solving, andcultural exchange.

“I was interested in meetingyoung African scientists to discussenergy materials, a universal concern which is relevant to myresearch in ionic liquids. I was also excited to see Addis Ababa,Ethiopia, and experience the culture and historical attractions,”said Biedron.

A cornerstone of the Nan-otechnology for Clean EnergyIGERT program is having the students apply their training in a dynamic educational exchangeprogram with African institutions,promoting development of thestudents’ global awareness andunderstanding of the challengesinvolved in global scientific andeconomic development. In AddisAbaba, Biedron quickly noticedhow different the scope of research was between the African

scientists and theirinternational coun-terparts.

“The African scientists’ researchwas really solution-based,” saidBiedron. “Theywere looking at howthey could use their natural resources tosolve some of theirregion’s most press-ing issues, not onlyfor energy, but alsohealth, clean water,and housing. Youdon’t really see thatas much in the U.S.because we are already thinkingabout the future,

10 or 20 years from now.”This is the fourth consecutive

academic year that IGERT traineeshave been given the opportunityto travel to Africa. In December2011, Biedron and six otherIGERT trainees traveled to VictoriaFalls, Zimbabwe to attend the 6thInternational Conference of theAfrica Materials Research Societyalong with Chemistry ProfessorsJing Li and Eric Garfunkel. Garfunkel served as Chair of theInternational Advisory Committeefor the conference and is currentlyleading Rutgers’ materials-relatedexchange efforts with Africa. At the conference, the IGERTtrainees presented their researchto a diverse group of over 300scientists from around the world.

In the future, Rutgers studentswill have even more opportunitiesto collaborate with African scien-tists. Having seen the positive effects of the IGERT program’sAfrican component, Garfunkeland colleagues founded the Rutgers Institute for Science andTechnology Leadership in Africa(RISTLA) earlier this year. Estab-lished to foster science and tech-nology research collaboration andscholarly exchange between Rutgers and African institutions,Garfunkel envisions RISTLA as aboon for both Rutgers studentsand their African counterparts.“The overall goal of evolvingRISTLA programs is twofold: Weare looking to focus on capacitybuilding in Africa through educa-tion of their workforce, while alsoteaching U.S. students how to address global problems outsidethe United States,” Garfunkel said.

Exposure to African culturesand scientific institutions is alreadyhelping to give Rutgers students abroader worldview: “Collaborationis always a good thing. You havemore perspectives, resources, andsolutions to the same problem,”

Chemistry & Chemical Biology P I S C A T A W A Y

4

IGERT trainees at Victoria Falls in Africa(clockwise from left)Gautam Jain, MojganRoushan, Kim Scott,Eric Gauthier, BrightKusema, AleksandraBiedron, Tiffany Tong,Ryan Thorpe andJesse Kohl.

AIGERT Promotes Education Exchange with Africa

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Chemistry & Chemical BiologyP I S C A T A W A Y

said Biedron, adding that aftertwo trips to Africa, she is inter-ested in future collaborations.

“Going to Africa was great,”Biedron said. “I had a chance tosee what it’s like over there and

to interact with the people. NowI’d feel comfortable going for along-term internship in Africa.”

For additional information onthe Nanotechnology for CleanEnergy IGERT, please visit

www.energyigert.rutgers.edu/ orcontact Program Coordinator Johanna Bernstein at (848) 445-1557 or jrbernst@rci.rutgers.edu.

When not writingabout chemistry,Moss authors

articles on baseball, stamp collecting and

Sherlock Holmes.

hen he’s not busywriting about baseball,

stamp collecting orSherlock Holmes, Rutgers

Chemistry Research Pro-fessor Robert A. Moss searchesfor innovations in reactive organic intermediates—some-thing the National ScienceFoundation (NSF) has fundedfor over half a century.

“By the time my NSF fund-ing expires in 2016, I will havereceived the foundation’s sup-port for 51 years,” said Moss,72, who retired from teachingin 2006 so he could focus onhis research. “I believe that’s arecord for Rutgers Chemistry. I have received support frommany agencies and organiza-tions over the years, but NSFhas been with me the longest.They recently extended myfunding without my requestingan extension so I guess theylike what I am doing.”

Moss grew up in Brooklynand graduated from BrooklynCollege in June of 1960 with a degree in Chemistry beforeearning his doctorate at the University of Chicago. After apostdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University, he cameto Rutgers as an AssistantChemistry Professor in 1964.

Moss taught for over 40years before exclusively pursu-ing his first love—a class of unusual molecules known asreactive intermediates, whichare fundamental to organicchemistry. These ephemeral

molecules, appearing ever sobriefly during certain chemicalreactions, may live for as little as one trillionth of a second.

“These intermediates arecrucial to pathways throughwhich scientists can create newand different materials, thingswe need and use like newdrugs for human health or coat-ings to protect our buildingsand bridges,” Moss said. “To make such things, we needa full understanding of the reactions that produce them—and all the players involved.”

He supervised a team of upto 12 students during the heightof his career, including 61 Ph.D.candidates and 50 postdoctoralassociates. Moss and his associ-ates have authored more than430 scientific publications, in-cluding eight co-edited books,the latest of which, Contempo-rary Carbene Chemistry, is expected to be published byWiley later this year. Publishedcontributions over the yearshave included reactive interme-diates (carbenes, carbocations, carbanions), reactions in organic aggregates (micelles and lipo-somes), and the decontamina-tion of toxic organic phosphorouscompounds.

Moss has received manyhonors, including the Distin-guished Alumnus Medal ofBrooklyn College; Fellow of the American Association forthe Advancement of Science;Arthur C. Cope Scholar Awardfrom the American Chemical

Society; and Fellow of theAmerican Chemi-cal Society.

When not writing aboutchemistry, Mossauthors articles onbaseball, stampcollecting andSherlock Holmesfor various mediaoutlets, includingNINE, The Ameri-can Philatelist andThe Baker Street Journal. A stamp collector as well, Mossowns an extensive collection ofstamps of the Faroe Islands,which lie halfway between Iceland and Scotland and westof Norway.

He has lived in Metuchenfor the last 40 years with hiswife, Sandra Wolman Moss, a retired physician who nowwrites and lectures on medicalhistory. They have two sons,Kenneth, who is Associate Professor of History at JohnsHopkins University, and Daniel,who is Assistant Professor ofEnglish at Southern MethodistUniversity. They also have twograndsons.

“I love research, but whenthe new NSF grant expires itprobably will be time to dosomething else,” said Moss. “I think I can find something to keep me busy.”

Moss Earns NSF Support for a Record 51 Years

W

Chemistry Research Professor Robert A. Moss

Lion

el G

oodm

an

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Chemistry & Chemical Biology P I S C A T A W A Y

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the effectiveness of existing AIDSdrugs,” said Arnold. “In the 30years since the virus appeared onthe scene, we have gone fromhaving no medication to having26 drugs on the market. Ourchallenge remains to provide themost effective therapy and to getit to people in need in a cost-effective way.”

Arnold spearheaded an effortwith Rutgers Chemistry Profes-sors Roger A. Jones, Ronald M.Levy and Joseph Marcotrigiano,that has gained a projected five-year $6.3 million grant from theNational Institute of GeneralMedical Sciences, under the National Institutes of Health(NIH). “HIV Macromolecular Interactions and Impact on ViralEvolution of Drug Resistance”aims to fill in missing pieces ofthe HIV/AIDS structural puzzle,and to study the viral enzymesreverse transcriptase, integrase,and protease in different partsof the viral life cycle.

“The research will focus onaspects of HIV structure/func-tion that relate to viral assemblyand maturation, drug design,and drug resistance,” saidArnold. The overall grant is di-rected by Professor Arthur Olsonof The Scripps Research Institutein La Jolla, Calif., and also in-cludes investigators at HarvardUniversity, Ohio State Universityand the University of Pittsburgh.

Arnold has also been notifiedthat his NIH Method to ExtendResearch in Time (MERIT)Award has been extended for asecond five-year period (2014-2019), with total expected fund-ing of $3.8 million, for theproject, “HIV-1 reverse transcrip-tase structure: function, inhibi-tion, and resistance.” The National Institute of Allergy andInfectious Diseases grant, whichoriginated in 1988, supportsArnold’s structure-function stud-

he groundbreaking, 25 years of anti-HIV

research of Eddy Arnold, Rutgers Board of GovernorsProfessor of Chemistry andChemical Biology and Centerfor Advanced Biotechnologyand Medicine faculty, recentlyachieved another significantmilestone, securing an ex-pected $10.1 million in newfederal funding. Already a partner in enabling the discov-ery and development of twoFDA-approved drugs, Arnold’steam of researchers continuesto pursue the growing medicalproblem presented by resistantstrains of HIV.

“The virus is constantly mutating and the changes can diminish or completely prevent

ies of HIV reverse transcriptase, a central component of the virusand the target of the mostwidely used anti-AIDS drugs. The grant represents the second consecutive NIH MERIT award forArnold, an honor bestowed onfewer than 5% of investigators.His team’s basic research resultsare used worldwide to interpretnew scientific and clinical re-search findings in AIDS research.

“We hope to better under-stand the evolution of drug resistance and to improve drugdesign methodologies in thetreatment of HIV-infected individ-uals,” said Arnold. “Enhanced understanding of HIV assembly,maturation, reverse transcription,and integration will help us create better therapies.”

Arnold and his group beganworking with the late Dr. PaulJanssen over two decades ago to create drugs to fight AIDS.Janssen was a legendary drug developer and founder of Johnson & Johnson subsidiary,Janssen Pharmaceutica. Arnold’sresearch was essential in bringingtwo anti-HIV drugs to market—Intelence (etravirine) in 2008and Edurant (rilpivirine) in 2011.

Arnold’s team developed innovative models that not only explain why Edurant and Inte-lence are particularly effectiveagainst drug-resistant viruses, but that can also be used in the development of treatments for awide variety of other diseases.The gist of the model is that flexibility of a drug can allow it toadapt to changes in HIV or otherdisease-causing agents, therebyevading resistance.

Arnold’s current research program focuses on developingfundamental knowledge aboutnew therapeutics for diseases including AIDS and influenza.With colleagues in his group andat Rutgers, he has co-founded

Arnold’s HIV Research Secures $10.1 Million

Rutgers Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Eddy Arnold

John

Em

erso

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atent-pending technol-ogy developed by

Rutgers Chemistry Professor Kathryn Uhrich and

her colleagues has the potentialto greatly diminish morphineabuse while significantly improv-ing pain management for patients coping with acute andchronic illness or injury. Poly-Morphine (PM), an extendeddelivery system for morphine,an opioid drug commonly pre-scribed for pain management,could significantly reduce thebillions of dollars in annualhealthcare costs that result fromimproper medication dosingand abuse.

An internationally renownedpolymer scientist, Uhrich andcolleagues previously developeda polymerization technologythat enables a drug to be itsown biodegradable delivery vehicle, which was first utilized in PolyAspirin. PolyMorphine ispart of this family of “extended-delivering drugs” that are utilized more efficiently and can be administered at higherconcentrations to specific sitesin the body utilizing biodegrad-able poly(anhydride-esters) thatturn into therapeutically activemolecules.

“Our research has shownthat PolyMorphine (PM) extends the duration of theanalgesic effect of morphinefrom less than four hours tothree days, almost ten timeslonger the pain-relieving effect,”said Uhrich, Rutgers Dean ofMathematical & Physical Sciences. “The use of PM has

the potential toimprove patientcomfort and quality of life bydecreasing dosingfrequency andcontrolling treat-ment compli-ance.”

Uhrich’s teamconducted in vivostudies using miceto determine theanalgesic effectfrom PolyMor-phine, anddemonstrated extended analge-sia of PM due toits multi-day slowrelease, whencompared to freemorphine. In addi-tion, preliminaryresults demon-strate no signs ofmorphine toler-ance developmentin the animals.The novel invention has the potential to increase specificitythrough localized drug release,eliminate requirements for frequent dosing, prevent acci-dental overdose, and reducetheoccurrence of undesired side effects. The study was published in the Journal of Controlled Release this pastSeptember.

“The genius of Dr. Uhrich’sinvention lies in the simplicity ofthe design: take a well-knowndrug—morphine—and chemi-cally tatter it together, sort of likea string of beads,” said Profes-

sor Lei Yu of the Department ofGenetics and Center of AlcoholStudies at Rutgers, who collaborated on the study. “This‘morphine-on-a-string’ now is apro-drug. Once administeredinto the body, the hydrolysisprocessed by the body’s watercontent gradually releases individual morphine ‘beads’ toachieve long-lasting pain relief.The concept is just brilliant.”

Opioid analgesics such asmorphine are among thestrongest pain relievers and are

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Chemistry & Chemical BiologyP I S C A T A W A Y

infectious diseases.According to the Joint United

Nations Programme onHIV/AIDS, more than 34 millionpeople are living with HIV world-

Prodaptics Pharmaceuticals, a company that has establisheda structure-based drug designplatform for discovery of newtherapeutics for treatment of

wide. The Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention estimatesthat 1.1 million U.S. residents areliving with the disease.

continued on page 11

Research Targets Pain Management, Health Costs

P Nic

k Ro

man

enko

Rutgers Chemistry Professor Kathryn Uhrich holds PolyMorphine in her CCB lab.

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Chemistry & Chemical Biology P I S C A T A W A Y

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determine where students haveproblems. Online tools will alsobe available to allow students to self-diagnose their learningchallenges, leading to better utilization of lecture and recita-tion time as well as faculty office hours.

“We have tried everye-learning technology on themarketplace today and none ofthem did what we wanted, sowe decided to create our ownartificial intelligence system,”said York, a computation scien-tist who came to Rutgers fromthe University of Minnesota in2010. “GCeLS is not meant toreplace classroom interaction,but to enhance it. Our goal is tohave lectures focus on the keychemistry concepts and theirinter-relationships, and illustratereal life examples where theyare important. After class, students digest the material byusing our e-learning tool to workthrough numerical exercises thatplace the concepts into a practi-cal context. What we want to

CB is quickly moving forward with a novel

e-learning system that couldtransform the way studentslearn chemistry at universitiesand grade schools nationwide,while helping educators fill thevoid for better trained person-nel in the science industries.

“Any student that has takena general chemistry class at alarge university understands the challenge of learning thecomplex subject in a lecturehall with 350 to 400 students,”said Chemistry Professor andGeneral Chemistry CoordinatorDarrin York, who directs thetechnical software design andimplementation of the GeneralChemistry eLearning System(GCeLS). “Even for thestrongest students, generalchemistry is a struggle becausethey need to develop problemsolving skills that reach far be-yond what they have learned inhigh school. We believe GCeLSis vital to managing this chal-lenge and preparing studentsfor coursework and careers inthe sciences.”

GCeLS will provide a cyber-infrastructure with an interactivewebsite and relational chemicaldatabases that are integratedwith a hierarchical network ofcritical skills required to solvechemistry problems. Studentswill do homework problems on the GCeLS website,http://elearning.rutgers.edu/,which will go live in the Fall.GCeLS is an intuitive technol-ogy that never creates thesame problem twice and isgeared toward the unique skillsof each student. The systemwill store each student’sprogress and allow faculty to

avoid is number crunchingthrough problems in lecture tothe point students don’t see thechemistry—that’s how you losethe interest of a lecture hall with400 students.”

John Brennan, RutgersChemistry Professor and ViceChair of the Undergraduate Program, notes that there is anever-increasing demand for un-dergraduate students majoring inscience, technology, engineeringand mathematics—the STEMfields. The demand is driven bythe needs of high tech indus-tries, academia, medical profes-sions, and basic and appliedscience research labs.

“General chemistry is reallythe cultural gateway to the sci-ences, but there is a very highfailure rate for students becausethe subject material is challeng-ing and students frequently jumpinto the class too early in theircollegiate careers,” said Brennan.“Faculty members are faced withthe challenge of dumbing downthe class or finding innovative

“We believe ourmodel for

e-learning cyber infrastructure can

be extended to otherSTEM courses.”

Novel CCB e-Learning System Set for the Fall

C

Chemistry Professor Darrin York (far right) demonstrates the General ChemistryeLearning System with (from left) Ph.D. candidates Thakshila Dissanayake andMaria Panteva.

Cris

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Chemistry & Chemical BiologyP I S C A T A W A Y

ways to educate students.Nowhere is this need more evi-dent than in chemistry, which isconsidered the central sciencethat connects the physical andlife basic sciences. Chemistryforms a bridge with applied sci-ences such as material science,engineering and medicine. As aresult, universities nationwidehave had to face great chal-lenges to provide quality entry-level training for students ingateway STEM classes.”

York said the Rutgers team,which includes lead content developer Francesca Guerraand lead technical developerKarlun (James) Chun, hopes tocreate a powerful GCeLS toolthat can be utilized by highereducation institutions and gradeschools nationwide. “We believeour model for e-learning cyberinfrastructure can be extendedto other STEM courses,” saidYork, who serves on the RutgersOnline Educational SteeringCommittee and the Committeefor Undergraduate Education.

Also in the Fall, the Chem-istry department plans to offergeneral chemistry recitationclasses online every day and at least one section of thechemistry lecture online. Thedepartment also established aChemistry Lecture Demonstra-tion Facility, directed by York,which brings demonstrationsinto the classroom.

“We are trying to addressstudent frustrations, such as notbeing able to get the recitationclass times they want,” Yorksaid. “At the same time, we arelooking for every opportunity tohelp faculty keep students en-gaged and develop the scienceleaders of tomorrow.”

Undergraduate Awards

CRODA AWARDS:Titania Chin, Karim Elmor-shedy, Nicholas Raffa, andJenny Shah received the Gen-eral Chemistry 161-162 & 162Solid Gems Award for Excel-lence in General Chemistry.

Mark Quilon was recognized asan Outstanding Student inSophomore ChemistryClasses for Excellence in Or-ganic Chemistry.

Tianyi Liu was recognized as anOutstanding Student in JuniorOrganic Chemistry Laboratoryfor Excellence in OrganicChemistry Laboratory.

COURSEWORK AWARDS:

Cassandra Burdziak receivedThe Rufus Kleinhans Awardfor Excellence in Honors Gen-eral Chemistry.

Julia Xia received The RogerSweet Award for Excellence inOrganic Chemistry.

Deepak Gupta and ManankPatel received The PhyllisDunbar Award for Excellencein Physical Chemistry.

Christopher Kaplan receivedthe ACS Inorganic DivisionAward for Excellence in Inor-ganic Chemistry.

Tamr Atieh received the ACSAnalytical Division Award forExcellence in InstrumentalAnalysis.

Jessalyn Devine received TheHypercube Award for Excel-lence in Chemical Physics.

Reem Asraf, Efua Bolouvi,Neeta Chakraverthy, KevinHejnas, Sarah Indano, and

Richa Rana received theChemistry and Chemical Biol-ogy Service Award, presentedto Chemistry majors with astrong record of participation,outreach, and departmentalservice.

JUNIOR AWARD:Sarah Goodman received TheNing Moeller Award for Out-standing Academic Achieve-ment by a Chemistry Major inthe Junior Year.

SENIOR AWARDS:Jimmy Patel received TheMerck Award for General Aca-demic Excellence & Research.

Aaron Sun received The BruceGarth Award for General Aca-demic Excellence & Research.

Michael Olson received TheVan Dyke Award for AcademicExcellence & Research inChemistry.

CHEMICAL RESOURCESAWARDS DONATED BY PAULKEIMIG:Alicja Cygan, Sarah Goodman,Christopher Kaplan, DianaSun, and Peter Waddell re-ceived the Chemical Re-sources Award for Distinctionin Research.

Justin Corbo, Michael Olson,Jimmy Patel, and Aaron Sunreceived the Chemical Re-sources Award for HighestDistinction in Research.

PHI BETA KAPPA INITIATES:Zhaozhi Jiang, Tianyi Liu, andGram M. Townsend wereelected to the Phi Beta KappaSociety.

STUDENT AWARDS • SPRING 2013

continued on page 10

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COMPUTATIONAL AWARD DONATED BY KEVIN J. THEISEN:Mohammad Malik receivedthe Chemdoodle Award forExcellence in ComputationalChemistry & Informatics.

CHEM. 499 – INTRODUCTIONTO TEACHING CHEMISTRY LAB:The following students wererecognized for their contribu-tion to the department in theteaching of a freshman chem-istry lab: Tamr Atieh, EmilyBuginsky, Milos Cejkov, AlicjaCygan, Neyra Jemal, ClarenceLi, Steven Nichol, MichaelOlson, Kevin Schaefer, AaronSun, and Lan Wei.

Graduate Awards

THOMAS DUFF TRAVEL AWARD:Voshadhi Amarasinghe, Mu Chen, Wenchun Feng,Kathleen Field, Lisa Hurd,Fuguo Jiang, Gina Moriarty,Maria Panteva, Shreyas Shah,Boning Wu, and Lu Yangreceived the Thomas DuffTravel Award for students presenting their research at national or international conferences.

Chemistry & Chemical Biology P I S C A T A W A Y

CCB on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedInStay in touch with friends and on top of the latest CCB news and events. Like, join or follow our pages on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn through the following links or just search Rutgers Chemistry.

• Facebook: www.facebook.com/RutgersChemistry• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3937350&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr• YouTube: www.youtube.com/rutgerschem

Among the many useful things you will find on the social media pages are three new Chemistry videos. The videos feature Professors Eddy Arnold and Darrin Yorkdiscussing their areas of specialty as well as graduate students Wenchun Feng, KatieField, Michele Ouimet, Paul Smith, and Andrew Steffens discussing their experiencein the chemistry program.

JANUARY 2013M.S.John Fiske

PH.D.

Bonan CaoRoselin Rosario-

MelendezDavid Wang

MAY 2013B.A.

Nishat T. AhmedMichael D. AminRustam AminjanovAbsari Z. ArpaTamr B. AtiehSamreen BanoGerman BrodskiyEmily L. BuginskyChristopher ChanSteven W. ChinByung Mi ChoiXimena ColladoJustin M. CorboTyler Davenport

Viktor DubovoyAllison M. DyevoichJoseph A. EspositoTravis A. HillZhaozhi JiangBrian J. JohnsonMoaz S. KaleemChuan KaoYesha KathraniSunah KimJustin C. LeeClarence LiTianyi LiuEnayet MaliqueJack R. MaranhaoDeeb M. MashniFahad MohammadLaura MottaMichael P. OlsonArpit A. PatelJimmy PatelManank G. PatelNeel D. PatelPriyal L. PatelBrandon J. Pater

Sanjeev RaiKristen M. RealeKevin C. SchaeferMinli ShiTyler J. SmithAaron X. SunGram M.

TownsendLan WeiThomas P. Wright

M.S.

Deodialsingh Guiadeen

Alexandra V. Zatorski

PH.D.

Fuguo JiangDavid LaviskaBrian MooreAniruddh SolankiTian SunHaohan WuXiao Zhang

DEGREES CONFERREDcontinued from page 9

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Chemistry & Chemical BiologyP I S C A T A W A Y

widely used for the treatmentand management of acute andchronic pain. Currently availablecommercial extended-releasemorphine tablets are successfulat maintaining long-term bene-fits only up to 24 hours.

“PolyMorphine may offer a desirable option as a long-acting, low abuse liability alter-native to conventional opioidanalgesics because morphinecannot be physically separatedfrom PM,” said Roselin Rosario-Meléndez, a project researcherwho recently completed herdoctorate at Rutgers. “Othercontrolled release formulationscontain a large dose that can bereadily separated by crushing or

PAIN MANAGEMENTcontinued from page 7

technology available to shareover 88,000 structures with250,000 unique users.

“I don't think people envi-sioned how large and complexthe PDB would turn out to be,”Berman said. “Many of the structure determination methodsused today didn’t exist. Thearchive’s audience has alsochanged from being mainlystructural biologists to many and various types of users.”

The PDB archive is the single worldwide repository of information about the 3D structures of large biologicalmolecules, including proteinsand nucleic acids, providing an essential resource of infor-mation about biomolecularstructures. These molecules oflife are found in all organisms,from bacteria and plants to animals and humans.

“Understanding the shape ofa molecule helps to understandhow it works,” Berman said.

“This knowledge can be used tohelp deduce a structure’s role inhuman health and disease, andin drug development. The struc-tures in the archive range fromtiny proteins and bits of DNA tocomplex molecular machineslike the ribosome.”

Today, the RCSB PDB mem-ber institutions are Rutgers andUniversity of California, SanDiego. The majority of the RCSBPDB staff and infrastructure areheadquartered at the RutgersCenter for Integrative Pro-teomics Research, a four-story,75,000-square-foot-facility onthe Busch Campus.

In recognition of the interna-tional nature of PDB depositorsand data users, Berman helpedlaunch a worldwide collabora-tion in 2003 to manage theProtein Data Bank. Called theWorldwide Protein Data Bank(wwPDB), the organizationjoins the RCSB PDB togetherwith wwPDB institutions in theU.S., United Kingdom andJapan. Berman hopes more

international partners will beadded in the future.

Locally and around theworld, RCSB PDB continues towork to enable scientists toachieve medical advances andhelp everyone from gradeschool students on up under-stand the structural view of biol-ogy through outreach programsand innovative online toolssuch as PDB-101.

“In the future, there is nodoubt that the number, size,and complexity of the structuresin the PDB will continue togrow,” Berman said. “The sameis true for the armament of hybrid methods utilized to determine structures—a varietyof biophysical, biochemical andmodeling techniques to repre-sent the shapes of complexmolecular machines. Forty yearslater, our challenge remains tosupport scientific discovery andto promote public understand-ing of how the shapes of pro-teins and nucleic acids are vitalto the study of medicine.”

PDBcontinued from page 1

T he PDB archive isthe single worldwide

repository of information about the 3D structures.

continued on page 12

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Department of Chemistry and Chemical BiologyRutgers, The State University of New Jersey610 Taylor RoadPiscataway, NJ 08854

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PAIDNew Brunswick, NJ

Permit No. 157

breaking the tablet or capsule,which results in increased potential for recreational use.”

As a pain management option for abdominal, ortho-pedic and thoracic surgery patients, the Rutgers Office ofTechnology Commercialization(OTC) has estimated that Poly-Morphine could potentially save approximately $1,000 or moreper patient, or $6 billion dollars,based on projections from themore than 6.3 million annualsurgeries that fell into these categories in 2010.

“The financial impact of PMcould actually be far greaterconsidering that we have anaging population,” said Uhrich.“By 2030, it is expected thatfirst-time total knee replace-

ments will increase 700 per-cent and first-time total hip replacements will increasemore than 150 percent. Just as important, but more difficultto calculate are the benefitsprovided to patients by an im-proved quality of life, reducedpatient concerns about pain relief, reduced physical therapy,lowered immune system stressand the relieved societal costsof drug abuse.”

Another benefit of PM is alikely reduction in morphineabuse. Based on published reports, it is known that opioiddrug abuse costs in the U.S.alone tallied approximately$55.7 billion in 2007, including$25.6 billion (46%) in theworkplace, $25 billion (45%) in healthcare services, and $5.1billion (9%) in criminal justice

costs. Workplace costs weredriven by lost earnings frompremature death ($11.2 billion)and reduced compensation orlost employment ($7.9 billion).Health care costs consisted primarily of excess medical and prescription costs ($23.7billion). Criminal justice costswere largely comprised of correctional facility ($2.3 billion)and police costs ($1.5 billion).

“Our studies have used PMvia injection into the body cavityand we also envision that Poly-Morphine can be administeredas an implant during surgery orvia localized injection,” saidNicholas D. Stebbins, the pro-ject’s current primary graduatestudent researcher. “We plan tocontinue our research and hopeto extend the analgesic effect ofPM up to one week.”

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SAVE THE DATESaturday, October 26

SECOND ANNUAL HOMECOMING TAILGATE hosted by Rutgers Chemistry Alumni of the Northeast Region

Rutgers chemistry alumni are invited to meet and catchup with former and current students and faculty!Visit chem.rutgers.edu for details about this event.

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