Seminars & Events

Seminar Abstract: In nature, some marine organisms, such as Vogtia and Cephalopods, have evolved to possess camouflage traits by dynamically and reversibly altering their transparency, fluorescence, and coloration via muscle controlled surface structures and morphologies. To mimic this display tactics, we designed similar deformation controlled surface engineering via strain-dependent cracks and folds to realize four types of novel mechanochromic devices: (1) transparency change mechanochromism (TCM), (2) luminescent mechanochromism (LM), (3) color alteration mechanochromism (CAM), and (4) encryption mechanochromism (EM), based on a simple bilayer system containing a rigid thin film and a soft substrate. These devices exhibit a wide scope of mechanochromic responses with excellent sensitivity and reversibility. These novel devices are promising for applications in many fields, especially in stretchable electronics.

Seminar speaker Biography: Dr. Luyi Sun is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and the director of the Polymer Program at the University of Connecticut. He received his PhD from the University of Alabama in 2004. After his postdoctoral training in Texas A&M University, he worked as a Senior Research Engineer at TOTAL Petrochemicals USA, Inc. from 2006 to 2009. Dr. Sun started his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Texas State University from 2009 to 2013. Dr. Sun’s current research focuses on the design and synthesis of nano-structured multifunctional hybrids for various applications.

Abstract: Ion Channels are critical for life and represent an important class of drug target for a wide variety of therapeutic indications. Although ion channels have been an area of intense pharmacological research for decades, only a small fraction of them have potent and selective pharmacological tools which can be used to explore their roles in physiology and therapeutic potential. One limitation in our ability to rapidly discover and develop ion channel-selective pharmacological probes is the difficulty in measuring ion channel activity in a fashion consistent with testing large libraries of drug-like compounds. I will discuss the discovery and use of a thallium-sensitive fluorescent indicator to develop high-throughput methods for measuring potassium channel activity and the use of these methods to discover novel, potassium channel-selective pharmacological tools.

Speaker's Autobiography: I was born outside of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. For my undergraduate and post-graduate research, I studied in the laboratory of Dan Roberts at the University of Tennessee. My research focus was on the symbiosis between the soil bacterium Bradyrhizobium and soybean. It was during these studies that I became interested in ion channels and ion transport. Intent on learning the patch-clamp electrophysiology technique and applying it to the study of plant physiology, I elected to do my post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Todd Verdoorn at Vanderbilt University where I used patch clamp to investigate the role of ionotropic glutamate receptor ion channels in pancreatic islet function. Instead of returning to plant physiology research as I had intended, I accepted a position at Bristol-Myers Squibb in response to their expanding investment in ion channel drug discovery. It was at BMS that I developed the thallium flux technique and other methods for high-throughput screening of ion channels. In 2003 Vanderbilt University made a large investment in the area of chemical biology and academic drug discovery. I was recruited to build a high-throughput screening facility and help found what became the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery. Over the past 15 years I have continued with research aimed at discovering new pharmacological tools for the study of ion channels. This work has, in turn, led me to develop in an interest in the design and construction of optical plate readers and fluorescent, ion-sensitive probes. Recently, I joined ION Biosciences, a start-up at the Star Park technology incubator. ION is focused on the development of next-generation fluorescent probes and their use for the advancement of basic and translational research.

Doyle has been called the “guru of undergraduate research” in recognition of his role in developing student careers in the chemical sciences through research.  More than 160 undergraduate students are coauthors of at least one publication with him.  At Maryland he was Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for ten years, during which time he led his department to be a recognized center for diversity in the preparation of underrepresented minorities for the Ph.D. degree in chemistry and biochemistry.

His research contributions have focused on nitrogen chemistry, from diazonium salts in the 1970’s to the chemistry and biochemistry of nitrogen oxides and nitrites in the 1980’s, to diazo chemistry and catalysis for metal carbene formation beginning in the 1980’s and asymmetric catalysis in the 1990’s. Chiral dirhodium(II) carboxamidate catalysts (the “Doyle catalysts”) were the first highly enantioselective dirhodium(II) catalysts used for asymmetric metal carbene reactions.

The author of nearly 400 peer-reviewed publications, 11 books, 11 patents, and 25 book chapters.  He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry, and he is the recipient of numerous awards for his research, including the 2014 Hillebrand Award from the Chemical Society of Washington, a 2006 Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and a 2003 Merit Award from the National Institutes of Health and, recently, the 2020 International Precious Metals Institute’s Henry J. Albert Award for his pioneering work with rhodium catalyst reactions.