January 28th:

Dr. Erzsebet Kokovay

Assistant Professor

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA)

"Niche regulation of adult neural stem cells."

 February 4:

 Dr. Christi Walter, Professor and Chair, Department of Cellular and Structural Biology,

UTHSCSA

(Host: Dr. Rachell Booth)

February 11: 

CANCELLED

 February 18: 

 Dr. Todd Hudnall, Assistant Professor,

Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Texas State University

(Host: Dr. Bill Brittain)

February 25: 

 Dr. Orlin Velev, INVISTA Professor,

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University

(Host: Dr. Bill Brittain)

"Precise Directed Assembly of Collodial Particles into Materials with Engineered Structure and Properties."

 Wednesday 27:

 Dr. Ozcan Gulacar, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Texas State University

 (Host: Dr. Bill Brittain)

March 4: 

 Dr. Nicholas Fitzkee, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Mississippi State University

(Host: Dr. Steve Whitten)

"Adventures in Disordered Proteins: From Denatured States to Nanoparticles."

 Thursday March 7:

 Dr. Don Darensbourg, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University

(Host: Dr. Todd Hudnall)

"Making Polymers from Cyclic Ethers and Carbon Dioxide"

March 18: 

"The Effect of Silica Microenvironment on the Isomerization Behavior of Photochromic Compounds"

Ms. Whitney Wood (Advisor: Dr. Kevin Lewis)

"Analysis of the Roles of Yeast Nuclear Proteins in DNA Repair, Mating Type Switching and DNA Damage Checkpoint Responses."

 March 25: 

Mr. Robert K. Danso, Graduate Student (Advisor: Dr. Tania Betancourt)

"Molecularly Responsive Aptamer-Crosslinked PEG Nanogels as Drug Delivery System."

April 3 (Wed.): 

 Mr. Charu Priyam (Advisor: Dr. Corina Maeder

"Intereaction of Snu114p and U5 snRNA in the Spliceosome"

 Mr. Andres Gonzalez (Advisor: Dr. Rachell Booth)

 "Binding Affinity of ENa+C  Subunits and Peptides Measured Through Surface Plasmon Resonance" 

 April 8:

 Dr. Carol Hall, Camille Dreyfus Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State Univerity (Host: Dr. Bill Brittain)

"Themodynamic and Kinetic Origins of Alzheimer's and Related Diseases: a Chemical Engineer's Perspective" 

 April 15:

 Mr. Mark Riggs (Advisor: Dr. Gary Beall)

"The Synthesis of Gold-Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles for Use in A Point-of-Care Diagostic Test for Norovirus"

Ms. Jessica Potts (Advisor: Dr. Gary Beall)

"Synthesis and Characterization of Cyclic Organosiloxane"

April 22: 

 Mr. Sam Navarro (Advisor: Dr. Tania Betancourt)

 April 29:

 Mrs. Esther Lee (Advisor: Dr. Rachell Booth)

Mr. Romel Perez (Advisor: Dr. Steve Whitten)

"Quantitative Analysis of p53 Binding With Varying Glycerol Concentrations"

May 6: 

Dr. Marc d'Alarcao, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Chemical Biology, The San Jose State University (Host: Dr. Alex Kornienko)

"Sweet Medicine: Carbohydrates, Metabolism, and Cancer."

Abstract:

Devising therapeutic strategies to treat cancer is complicated by the fact that cancer cells are fundamentally human cells.  Therefore finding methods to kill cancer cells without harming the rest of the cells in the body is very difficult and relies on identifying and understanding the properties that are unique to cancer cells.  One of these is related to the way cancer cells derive energy from dietary sugar glucose.

In this seminar, I will give a progress report on our work aimed at developing and synthesizing new compounds that are designed to take advantage of this metabolic difference.  Our hope is that these compounds will be selectively toxic to cancer cells and may provide a new strategy for treating this major threat to human health.