April 2021 Newsletter
|
|
Dear Alumni and Friends,
In late fall 2019, I started my introduction to the 2020 newsletter with “2020 is a year to remember. This is the year the campus community will commemorate the 150th anniversary of Missouri S&T's Feb. 24, 1870, charter. Our department will honor the sesquicentennial with the presentation of the Fifth Annual Stoffer Lecture featuring 2019 Chemistry Nobel Laureate M. Stanley Whittingham on Oct. 16, 2020...”
Well, 2020 was indeed a year we will never forget because of the disruptions due to the pandemic. And we also will never forget 2021 as the year that is bringing widespread vaccination. What an absolutely awesome display of science and technology: a new vaccine paradigm altogether, developed in less than six months, and mass-produced and distributed within 15 months.
Our “Celebration of Chemistry on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of Missouri S&T with the 2019 Chemistry Nobel Laureate M. Stanley Whittingham” has been rescheduled to April 16, 2021.
Most importantly, 2020 is a year to remember for truly impressive accomplishments by faculty, students and staff. We did offer in-person labs throughout academic year ‘20-‘21! Research remained active, productive and safe in our “research group bubbles”! And DOC infrastructure has been advanced significantly; please visit the DOC website for details and follow us on Twitter.
2021 brings the return to fully in-person instruction in the fall. To be honest, we will never really “go back” to the way things were. We will have in-person instruction again with a new appreciation for “in-person” delivery, but it will be STEM instruction on hybrid technology-enhanced steroids, to put it colloquially.
Sincerely,
Rainer Glaser
Professor and Chair, Chemistry
|
|
Several universities in addition to Missouri S&T will benefit from a new rotational microwave spectrometer at Missouri S&T, thanks to a $1.5 million Major Research Instrumentation award from the National Science Foundation. The spectrometer will allow researchers to collect some of the most detailed information available about the structure of gas phase molecules, says Garry "Smitty" Grubbs, associate professor of chemistry and principal investigator on the project.
|
|
As NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover continues to explore the surface of Mars, S&T chemistry associate professor Vadym Mochalin and his team are working with the Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Nanoscale Materials to use MXenes as a “superlubricant” to reduce wear and tear on future rovers. These two-dimensional nanomaterials work well to reduce friction and perform better than conventional oil-based lubricants in extreme environments.
|
|
Chemistry degrees typically require in-person lab experience, but due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, those requirements could be waived. When students returned to classes in the fall 2020, social distancing requirements forced many courses to move to hybrid and remote learning. For hands-on laboratory courses, this posed a challenge that our chemistry faculty members were ready to meet.
|
|
Using carbon nanotubes and gold nanoparticles, S&T chemistry assistant research professor Wenyan Liu and associate professor Risheng Wang are joining nanotechnology with biomedical diagnostics to create a new ultrasensitive DNA biosensor. Shaped like a sea urchin, the device could detect DNA-based biomarkers for early diagnosis of cancer or genetic disorders as well as monitor patient responses to various therapies.
|
|
S&T chemistry research professor Honglan Shi and adjunct chemistry professor Casey Burton, Chem’13, PhD Chem’17, director of medical research at Phelps Health, are teaming up to develop a urine test to see if a patient could have an increased risk of breast cancer. Shi uses metabolic flux techniques to study the way pteridine metabolism changes as a healthy cell becomes cancerous. The research will help determine if these pteridines could become biomarkers. And if so, find ways they can be inexpensively and non-invasively monitored in cancer patients.
|
|
Connect with Missouri S&T's
Chemistry Department
|
104 Schrenk Hall, 400 W. 11th St., Rolla, MO 65409
Copyright 2021
Curators of the University of Missouri
Unsubscribe