Graduate Student Selected to Participate in 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
Elizabeth Kelley, a fifth year graduate student in the University of Delaware’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, will have the opportunity to share her research on targeted drug delivery at the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting to be held June 30-July 5 in Lindau, Germany. Kelley’s selection to the annual international meeting, which focuses on promoting the global spread of knowledge in the areas of chemistry, physics and physiology, affords her the prestigious opportunity to discuss research with 35 Nobel Laureates and 625 other young researchers in an open conference setting. The theme for this year’s meeting is chemistry.
Among the Nobel Laureates expected is Akira Suzuki of Japan’s Hokkaido University, who alongside University of Delaware’s Richard Heck, earned the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Heck retired from UD in 1989 as the Willis F. Harrington Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “Her natural curiosity about how things work, paired with a research process that is far more mature than her actual years of experience, makes Liz an outstanding candidate for the 2013 Lindau Meeting,” Millicent Sullivan, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and Kelley’s graduate co-adviser, said. Kelley is also co-advised by Thomas H. Epps, III, Thomas and Kipp Gutshall Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Read more...
Delaware Bio Selects UD's Kiick to Receive Academic Research Award
University of Delaware professor Kristi Kiick is currently developing a range of novel hydrogels in order to improve the treatment of cardiovascular conditions as well as the delivery of antibodies to protect against toxins. The polymers that comprise the hydrogels are engineered to regulate the rate of drug delivery and to protect the therapeutic molecules from degrading before reaching their destination. For her work, Kiick, a professor of materials science and engineering and biomedical engineering, will receive the 2013 Academic Research Award at the Delaware BioScience Association’s (Delaware Bio) annual awards gala on May 22. Given annually, the award recognizes significant contributions to the advancement of life science research at an academic or medical research institution in Delaware.
In his nomination letter, Karl Steiner, UD senior associate provost for research development, referred to Kiick as one of “the best and brightest” and a “true leader on campus and beyond.” “Kristi is a pioneer in biopolymeric hydrogels and she is collaborating with numerous partners across Delaware and beyond to develop these materials, which are based on polymers and resilin, for cardiovascular and protein delivery applications,” Steiner said. Read more...
Announcing Eric M. Furst as the 2013 Soft Matter Lectureship Recipient
The Soft Matter Editorial Board have chosen Professor Eric M. Furst as the recipient of this year’s Soft Matter Lectureship. This annual Lectureship was established by the journal in 2009 to honour a younger scientist who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field. We would like to thank everyone who nominated someone – as always there was an excellent group of candidates – and congratulate Professor Furst.
Eric M. Furst is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Director of the Center for Molecular Engineering and Thermodynamics at the University of Delaware. Furst received his BS with University Honors in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, his PhD from Stanford University, and afterwards studied biophysics as a Chateaubriand postdoctoral fellow at Institut Curie, Paris. His interests span a wide range of topics in soft matter science and engineering, but focus in particular on the physics and chemistry of the colloidal domain. Furst’s research group is recognized for their contributions to active and passive microrheology, biomaterial rheology, interfacial phenomena, directed self-assembly of colloids and nanoparticles, and colloid electrokinetics. Read more...
Students translate academic research into plain English at Graduate Research Cafés
Giant penguins lived in the Southern Ocean 40 million years ago, growing as tall as 6 feet and weighing 200 pounds. Their demise may have been due to factors affecting modern species of penguins today: competition for food and a changing climate. Megan Cimino, a doctoral student in the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE), opened the final Graduate Research Café of the academic year on Monday with that hook into her work on changing penguin habitats in Antarctica. The talks are designed to capture the interest of a lay audience while sharpening the presentation skills of graduate students.
In the second 20-minute presentation, chemical and biomolecular engineering doctoral student Peter Beltramo explained the peculiar properties of colloidal particles at the nanoscale. Football-shaped polymer particles, only one-thousandth the width of a human hair, line up in the same direction in solution when an electric field is applied. Beltramo is studying the sound properties of these self-assembled particles at high frequencies, around the same frequency as Wi-Fi. Theoretically down the road, the work could have applications on blocking soundwaves with specialized paints or materials. Read more...
Engineers Work to Create New Biomaterials with Energy Technology Applications
When automotive engineers want to create a new car, they don’t build thousands of prototypes. Instead, they create computer models and run simulations for performance, efficiency and desirability before a model is selected for fabrication.
University of Delaware materials science professors Darrin Pochan and Kristi Kiick are taking a similar approach to building new nanomaterials from biomolecules — namely peptides and proteins — that could increase the efficiency of photovoltaics, also known as solar cells, and other electronic devices.
Collaborating with Jeffrey Saven, professor of physical and biological chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, Pochan and Kiick are working to develop useful protein-like molecules that can easily be scaled up into complicated nanomaterials for industrial applications. Read more...
