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Applying Folding@Home to Coronavirus Research UPDATE SUMMER 2020 College of Science and Technology CHEMISTRY UPDATE SUMMER 2020 Chair’s message Applying Folding@home to During the COVID-19 pandemic, Temple coronavirus research chemistry’s resilience meant this spring’s extremely challenging semester was also quite Associate Professor Vincent Voelz productive. Faculty brought their in-person has been working with an international classes online in a matter of days. Our team of researchers to computationally resourceful and talented students adapted well screen potential inhibitors of the to this new and, for many, unfamiliar mode of coronavirus’s main protease, an instruction. True to Temple’s motto, attractive target for new antiviral drugs. Perseverance Conquers, our graduating seniors They’re using the distributed computing emerged at the end of the semester with network Folding@home to do it. Folding bachelor degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, refers to the processes by which a and our graduate students with masters and protein structure assumes its shape doctorates. We hope they will enjoy a graduation so that it can perform its biological ceremony in the near future. functions. Currently, faculty are developing further “Our group uses the tools of expertise in online instruction to be ready for molecular simulation and statistical this fall. Meanwhile, the department’s world- mechanics to investigate the structure and function of biomolecules,” class research eff ort continues to transition from says Voelz, who has worked with Folding@home since 2007 while he a remote work environment back to our more was a postdoc at Stanford University, where the distributed computing familiar on-campus laboratory environment. network started. “It’s a quick jump from that work to using our expertise in While our path forward faces challenges, biomolecular simulation to help fi ght COVID-19.” there is no doubt that we can overcome anything For the coronavirus research, Voelz is partnering with researchers at thanks to the commitment and resilience of our Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Diamond Light Source. An students, staff and faculty. The latter will soon X-ray crystallography group in the U.K., Diamond Light Source has done include recently hired Assistant Professor Daniel groundbreaking work in solving more than a thousand diff erent crystal Kim, an organic chemist. His presence will structures of the coronavirus main protease and discovering several drug further strengthen our teaching and research fragments that bind to sites on the protein. mission to meet the challenges ahead. continues on page 2 I hope you enjoy reading about our department’s growing success. Daniel Strongin Professor and Chair Support Chemistry You can contribute to the continued success of the College of Science and Technology and the Department of Chemistry by supporting scholarships, undergraduate research and innovative programs. Make your gift at giving.temple.edu/givetocst. chem.cst.temple.edu Folding@home Can’t get enough of research in Germany continued from page 1 Stringent, sequenced curricula often make it harder for STEM students to study abroad. But that hasn’t stopped Olivia Stepanic, “When the virus gets inside a CST ’19, whose grandfather served in the U.S. Army in Germany, cell, it co-opts the machinery of where her mother also spent time as a toddler. the cell to assemble more copies of With a referral from Professor Ann Valentine, in whose lab the itself and replicate,” explains Voelz. then-undergraduate fell in love with research, Stepanic spent three “If you can inhibit the protease, you months of her junior year engaged in X-ray spectroscopy research in can inhibit a necessary step in the Germany. That research was funded by a $3,000 Temple University virus’s lifecycle.” Creative Arts, Research and Scholarship grant. She worked with an The combined computing acquaintance of Valentine’s, Serena DeBeer, an American inorganic power of Folding@home’s users chemist who is director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical is being used to virtually screen Energy Conversion in Germany. She then spent several months taking general education classes, a huge number of potential drug and one inorganic chemistry class, in German at the University of Hamburg. compounds. In early March, Stepanic loved the experience so much that, after graduating she returned to the Max Planck about 30,000 users were active Institute and Ruhr-University Bochum to pursue MS and PhD degrees in chemistry. She is using participants in the COVID-19 X-ray emission and absorption spectroscopies to explore phosphorus, biological zinc and zinc salts. project. As of June 15, there “I came back specifically to work with Serena because I thought I could learn a lot more from were more than 1 million people her,” says Stepanic, whose ultimate goals include teaching and pursuing academic research. participating. “Combined, we are “Temple prepared me really well for working in an international research setting. I really enjoy now the largest supercomputer communicating with the wide range of scientists at the institute, and I work with several amazing in the world,” says Voelz. “We’ve scientists from around the world.” broken the exaFLOP barrier, a measurement of operations per second that is the equivalent of ten Chemistry Department offers popular general times the computing power of the world’s fastest supercomputer.” education courses According to Voelz, the speed of the coronavirus’s spread Students from throughout the university, including non-science majors, have flocked to two around the world has inspired 3-credit general education courses: many researchers to remove “bottlenecks” in how scientific The Chemistry of Wine The Chemistry of Global knowledge is developed, analyzed This fall course, which regularly draws Environmental Issues and shared. 100 students, begins with a large-scale Global warming, alternative power sources “Scientific organizations fermentation of red and white grapes and and ocean acidification are some of issues are sharing information in an continues with team-based analyses of the two- explored by this course, which attracted more unprecedented way, and people month process of turning grape juice into wine. than 60 students during the past two semesters. around the world are banding The course was pioneered by Robert Levis, “We focus on the chemistry involved in these together to solve a very difficult professor and now senior associate dean of the processes, such as how the increase of carbon problem,” says Voelz. “Folding@ College of Science and Technology, when he dioxide in the atmosphere has led to potential home’s kind of citizen science or chaired the Chemistry Department. For the past increases in acidity in the ocean and the effects crowdsourced science can be very six years, it has been taught by Robert Rarig, on coral and shellfish,” saysElizabeth Cerkez, powerful. The more people get associate professor of instruction. assistant professor of instruction, who began turned on to this idea, the more “Mostly, the students are curious about teaching the course last fall after developing vitally important basic science we alcoholic beverages and are attracted to the the curriculum with Rarig. can do.” class because it talks about science in that Students also read current news to become Want to help find new drug context,” says Rarig. “Many of them haven’t more discerning: Do authors cite sources readers therapies to fight COVID-19? Go even had a high school chemistry class, but can verify? Who funds a particular study? to foldingathome.org to download the course allows me to expose them to the Says Cerkez, “The goal is to increase the software. chemistry that surrounds them every day.” scientific literacy by giving students tools to think critically about the science they see and hear in the news.” Newly Funded Grants IDing new psychoactive drugs Alex Krotulski, CST ’19, is a forensic toxicologist and chemist who utilizes mass Rodrigo Andrade spectrometry to identify new psychoactive substances (NPS). These synthetic drugs, • Synthesis and Evaluation of Narrow- including novel, more powerful opioids, are designed to circumvent prosecution for Spectrum Antibiotics Targeting MRSA, NIH the manufacture, distribution and use of listed illegal drugs, such as cocaine, heroin Eric Borguet and fentanyl. • MRI: Development of a Timeresolved, Krotulski, as a research scientist and the program director, oversees operations of High-resolution Nonlinear Optical NPS Discovery, a flagship program for the nonprofit Center for Forensic Science Research Microscope for Interfacial Studies, NSF and Education (CFSRE) at the Frederic Rieders Family Foundation in Pennsylvania. CFSRE collaborates with federal agencies—including the U.S. Department of Justice Hai-Lung Dai and the CDC—as well as state and local law enforcement agencies and medical examiners • Chemical Mechanisms of Biodeterioration throughout the country to identify new drugs and specific drug combinations responsible of Aircraft Fuel Studied by Nonlinear for overdose deaths. Light Scattering, Air Force Office of Krotulski earned BS and MS degrees in forensic science from Loyola University New Scientific Research Orleans and Arcadia University, respectively—then earned his Temple chemistry PhD in Michael L. Klein just three and half years while also working full time at CFSRE. • Computational Chemical Science “At Temple, I started to develop and modify certain methods we now use to rapidly Center: Chemistry in Solution and at identify emerging
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