12/23/2003

• Stan Wong has been awarded an NSF CAREER award for Rational Synthesis and Studies of Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes

12/14/2003

• Roy Lacey has been appointed to the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee to NSF and DoE

11/04/2003

• Kevin Wang, a Ward Melville high school student working in Carlos Simmerling's lab, was just named a regional finalist in the Siemens Westinghouse Science competition, one of only 30 in the country. Next week he will go to compete at Carnegie-Mellon University. The title of his project is "A Novel Simulation Method for Protein Structure Prediction."

10/09/2003

• Nicole Sampson's and Alice Vrielink's work on Cholesterol Oxidases was featured on the cover of the September issue of Accounts of Chemical Reseach.

10/06/2003

• Professor Paul Lauterbur, has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his pioneering discoveries in Magnetic Resonance Imaging. This work was carried out in the Stony Brook Chemistry Department in the 1970s. The prize was shared with Professor Peter Mansfield of the University of Nottingham. All of us in the the Stony Brook Community send our warmest congratulations to Professors Lauterbur and Mansfield for this magnificent achievement.
  
  The instrument on which Lauterbur performed this critical experiment was a Varian A-60 NMR spectrometer capable of detecting protons at 60 MHz. That very same instrument is in a permanent display in the lobby of the Graduate Chemistry building. The ability to perform non-invasive imaging of the interior of living organisms using nuclear magnetic resonance is one of the most important medical discoveries of the twentieth century. Prof. Lauterbur left Stony Brook in 1985 to become the director of the Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Laboratory at the University of Illinois. While the MRI technique has become a commonplace diagnostic tool for the routine examination of soft tissues, research in this area of scientific endeavor continues to produce amazing results.
  

09/17/2003

• Michelle Millar was awarded the "Most Outstanding Advisor Award". This award is granted under the Campus Life Awards for Excellence in Leadership and involvement and "honors a faculty...member who serves as an advisor, is involved and available for students at all times, offers knowledge and experience to the organization, and provides assistance and support on an ongoing basis."
  

08/21/2003

• Carlos Simmerling's research is highlighted on the SUNY Research Foundation's Web Site

08/18/2003

• The Department gratefully acknowledges a generous donation to its Scholarship Fund by alumnus, Dr. Anthony Marfat and Pfizer Inc. (Groton Laboratories, PGRD). Dr. Marfat was promoted to Senior Research Fellow for his scientific leadership, outstanding drug discovery expertise and his drive to succeed, all of which has led to very significant and sustained drug discovery contributions to PGRD Groton Discovery. Dr. Marfat joined Pfizer in 1981 after receiving his PhD from SUNY Stony Brook with Professor Paul Helquist and completing postdoctoral research at Harvard University with Professor E.J. Corey, Nobel Laureate. In the last 8 years Dr. Marfat and his lab have discovered 8 drug candidates in multiple therapeutic and mechanistic areas; e.g. PDE4/TNFa inhibitors, 5LO/CO inhibitors, PDE4 inhibitors, beta-lactamase inhibitors.
  
• Over his career so far, Dr. Marfat and his lab co-workers have personally been responsible for a remarkable number of drug candidates - 16 in total and one commercial drug. In addition, Dr. Marfat is recognized internally and externally as a scientific leader with outstanding drug discovery expertise, leading to 60 scientific papers, 23 external presentations and 36 granted patents to date. Dr. Marfat has made significant broad contributions to Discovery and PGRD as a whole, in particular via ECMT (Early Candidate Management Team) membership, and many examples of consultation in the area of COX-1/ COX-2 Inhibitors,5-Lipoxygenase Inhibitors/Leukotriene Antagonists, Phosphodiesterase Inhibitors and prodrugs. In addition, Dr. Marfat's skills, mentorship and enthusiasm for drug discovery continue to inspire colleagues and co-workers.

07/22/2003

• Updated the directions to get to the University

• Congratulations to Greta Varchi, an Italian postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Ojima's laboratory, who was the winner of the New York Road Runners Bronx Half Marathon (13.1 miles) on July 6. Here is a picture of the winner at the finish line. Here is another.

• Posted a picture of the Summer 2003 REU students

• Kathlyn Parker has been elected a Council Delegate to AAAS's Chemistry Section. 

• We note that former faculty member, Allen Krantz, has taken on the position of Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University of California at Berkeley and will head the campus' office of University Industry Liaison. The Berkeley announcement can be viewed at http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2003/06/05_avcir.shtml

The following students were recognized with special honors at the departmental graduation 

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Vladimir Simov - American Institute of Chemists Award
Chitra Ramasubbu - Outstanding Chemistry Student

Peter Chupas (Clare Grey) has been chosen to receive the Maria Tzamarioudaki Memorial Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student.
Younkee Paik (Clare Grey) has been chosen to receive the Lee Myers Award for Outstanding Doctoral Chemistry Student.
Santanu Chaudhuri (Clare Grey) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student.
Haishan Li (Nicole Sampson) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student.
Richa Rawat (Peter Tonge) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research.
Andrew Burrill (Philip Johnson) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research.
Namjun Kim (Clare Grey) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research.
Xinyuan Wu (Iwao Ojima) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research.
Jingyi Xiang (Nicole Sampson) has been chosen to receive a Chemistry Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research.
Hyunsoo Park (John Parise) has been chosen to receive the Chemistry First-Year Teaching Assistant Award.
Burcu Anil (Daniel Raleigh) has been chosen to receive the Chemistry Advanced Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award

Xudong Geng (Iwao Ojima)

• On May 12 in Albany, Carlos Simmerling was the Stony Brook faculty member recognized at the State University Recognition Dinner Honoring Innovation, Creation and Discovery. The work for which he was cited was "correctly predicting how a protein folds into its final shape purely from its genetic code".

• The Departmental Convocation will take place at 9:00 AM on Friday, May 23 in C116, Old Chemistry. The speaker will be Dr. William Murray (Ph.D., 1979 with Francis Johnson). Dr. Murray is Senior Director of Drug Discovery Chemistry at Johnson & Johnson.

• The current issue of the departmental newsletter is currently being mailed. It includes an insert describing activities at the Alumni Reunion on June 6-8 and announces a reception in New York City in conjunction with the New York ACS meeting - Sept. 7 - 11, 2003.

• Prof. Joanna Fowler, a member of the Department who has an appointment at the Brookhaven National Laboratories, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences

• Posted links to Essays on the Doctorate in Chemistry comissioned by the Carnegie Foundation by Ronald Breslow an Alvin Kwiram on the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate Web Page

• Andrew Sturm, a Junior in Chemistry and the President of the Undergraduate Chemical Society, has been chosen to receive a 2003 Bristol-Myers Squibb Summer Undergraduate Research Award ($5,000) for the research project, "Synthetic Study of Novel C-Seco-Taxoids: Novel Chemotherapuetic Agents for Cancer", under the direction of Professor Iwao Ojima. 
• Xudong (Deric) Geng (Iwao Ojima) has been selected as one of the recipients of the President's Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students.
• The work of the Ojima Group (Z. Hua, V. C. Vassar, and I. Ojima ) presented by graduate student, Zihao Hua, at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans was featured in the Science & Technology section (page 30) of the April 14th issue of Chemical & Engineering News. Zihao Hua is a 4th year graduate student and Victor C. Vassar is a postdoctoral associate in the group. The write- up, under the subtitle, "New ligands for catalytic asymmetric reactions continually are being developed, because every catalytic system needs to be fine-tuned depending on the substrate" can be accessed electronically at: http://pubs.acs.org/email/cen/html/041003092930.html

• Added International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry to Links page
• Students called to Military Duty should be directed to the Veteran Affairs Web page

• We noted earlier (1/27/2003) that Guanglei Cui (Simmerling group), was chosen as a winner of a Chemistry Computing Group Excellence Award. The current issue of J. Chem. Ed (p 393) lists a second recipient of the same award also from the Simmerling group, Bentley Strockbine, whose project was entitled Advances in Structure Prediction Techniques. Two of the 10 nationwide awards were to our department.

• Stony Brook Press releases on two NSF awards to David Hanson et al. 1) To develop a web-based system to assess students’ learning and 2.) to introduce an innovative method of teaching chemistry 

• A recent BNL Press release on the NSF funded Center for Environmental Molecular Science. Clare Grey is Associate Director of the Center. Also, the USB Press release. Stony Brook also featured the Center on its Science Coalition Website.

• A web page dedicated to the Department's activities as an allied department in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate has been created. It includes documents from the Carnegie Foundation and summaries of local meetings.

• A belated notice that the Department of Chemistry has been selected as an Allied Department in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. We join four Chemistry departments designated as a network of Allied Departments and seven designated as Partners in the initiative. Kathlyn Parker let the group in preparing the proposal to the Carnegie Foundation.

• Chemistry Research Day - 2003 was another resounding success. The Program and poster titles and some pictures of the event are posted.

• Posted the Department's Chemical Hygiene Plan

• The Center for Biotechnology has announced the undergraduate and graduate internship programs for 2003-4:
• 
  Undergraduate Biotechnology Internship Program & Graduate Industrial Research Internship Program

• Posted a link to MSDSsolutions.com - FREE Online MSDS Database on Chemical Resources Page

• Titles of posters for Chemistry Research Day have been posted

The following Chemistry Department members were recognized for their length of service at the Service Awards Ceremony on February 4, 2003

• Richard Solo - 40 years
• Mohammad Akhtar - 25 years
• Craig Munn - 25 years 
• Alvin Silverstein - 20 years
• Patricia Hoth - 20 - years
• Erwin London - 20 years

• Congratulations to Laura and David Jutting. Their son, David Matthew was born 5:44 PM, weighing in at 7 lbs. 14oz.

• Guanglei Cui (Simmerling group), was chosen as a winner of a Chemistry Computing Group Excellence Award. The award will be presented at the Spring 2003 ACS National Meeting in New Orleans. Winners were chosen based upon the quality and significance of their research as well as the strength of the supporting materials. Guanglei's research project was The Complicated Folding of a Simple Peptide Studied by Multiple Folding Simulations and Replica Exchange Approach.

• Yeon-Hee Lim (Parker group) was one of two graduate student poster winners at the April Scholastic Achievement Awards Dinner of the ACS. Yeon-Hee's poster was voted "Best Poster Overall."

• Professor Carlos Simmerling's research on the molecular dynamics of protein folding has been profiled in Chemical & Engineering News (American Chemical Society) as one of the top 100 chemistry discoveries of 2002. Professor Simmerling's work was also the subject of articles in Nature Science Update (September 2002) and Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (November 2002). (There have also been pieces written about the work in German, Danish, Basque, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Croatian, and Turkish.)

• Congratulations to Professor Joe Lauher for having co-authored the 61th most cited paper ever published in the Journal of the American Chemical. Society. JACS, which is the preeminent journal in the field of Chemistry, was first established in 1879. In its 124 year history, JACS has published 135,149 papers. 

#61 1075 (citations) Lauher, J. W.; Hoffmann, R. Structure and Chemistry of Bis(cyclopentadienyl)–MLn Complexes JACS 1976, 98, 1729–1742

The article is available on-line at http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/jacsat/1976/98/i07/pdf/ja00423a017.pdf

For the complete list of the 125th Most Cited JACS publications go to: http://pubs.acs.org/journals/jacsat/125promotion/articles.html
The list was produced as part of the 125th Anniversary of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.  12/19/2002

Two of Stan Wong's graduate students were recently honored at National Professional meetings

• Sarbajit Banerjee - - Gold Medal Award winner "in recognition of outstanding performance in the conduct of research" (Graduate Student Awards) for talk entitled, “Carbon Nanotube Sidewalls and End Caps as Target Sites for Chemical Modification: Chemical Control Over Nanotube Properties”, Materials Research Society – December 2-6, 2002 (Boston, MA).
• Michael G.C. Kahn - - First Place finish in Chemistry category for “Solubilization of Oxidized Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes in Organic and Aqueous Solvents through Organic Derivatization” at the 2002 Sigma Xi Student Research Conference. Galveston, TX, November 16, 2002. 

• The University has received an award of $750,000 over two years under the New York State Science, Technology and Academic Research Office Faculty Development Program to facilitate the creation of an Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery under the leadership of Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Iwao Ojima. The program's mandate is to assist institutions of higher education in New York State in the recruitment and retention of leading faculty in science and technology fields with strong commercial potential.
• Prof Ojima is also featured on RF Central's "Research Spotlight", located on RF's website. 

• Professor Benjamin S. Hsiao has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was nominated for this honor by the Society's Division of Polymer Physics "for insightful experiments to elucidate the early stages of crystallization of polymers, particularly through development of powerful synchrotron X-ray techniques".