University of Michigan hemistry C N E W S L E T T E R Letter from the Chair Contents I am pleased to send greetings and to sociate Professor with tenure to Professor Letter from the Chair ........................ 1 highlight the activities of the Chemistry with tenure last year: Anna Mapp, an or- Department over the past year under the ganic/chemical biology chemist; Melanie New Faculty ..................................... 2 outstanding leadership of Professor Mark Sanford, an organic/inorganic chemist; and Faculty News.................................... 3 Meyerhoff (Chemistry Department Chair, Eitan Geva, a theoretical/computational Faculty Profiles...............................4-5 1/09 – 7/10). We are very thankful for Pro- chemist. These faculty members were fessor Meyerhoff’s brilliant performance promoted based on their outstanding ac- Graduate Program News in recruiting new faculty and staff as well complishments and efforts in all three areas Degrees......................................... 6 as managing the budget and departmental of the department: research, teaching and policy. service. Finally, many Chemistry faculty Awards ........................................... 6 members were recognized with awards Novartis/Fajans ...........................7-8 The Department is making enormous over the past year, including: Michael Mor- Undergraduate Program News strides towards becoming one of the top ris, named the Richard D. Sacks Collegiate Chemistry programs in the nation, as Professor of Chemistry; A. Ramamoorthy, Degrees.......................................... 8 validated by increases in the departmental elected fellow of the American Associa- Awards ........................................... 9 ranking in recent surveys. Over the past tion for the Advancement of Science; and Summer Programs ........................ 9 year, the Department recruited a large Melanie Sanford, awarded the National class of high quality graduate students Fresenius Award, the ACS Award in Pure Gifts ................................................. 10 and added two new assistant professors: Chemistry, and the 2010 John Dewey Alumni News ............................. 11-12 Pavel Nagorny, a synthetic organic chemist Award for teaching excellence. Further, In Memoriam/Bob Taylor ................ 13 who is supported by the newly established we learned recently that Raoul Kopelman Robert A. Gregg endowed professorship, will receive the 2011 Pittcon Analytical Faculty Listing ................................. 14 and Nate Szymczak, an inorganic and ma- Chemistry Award. Alumni Reply terials chemist. Dr. Szymczak’s hire is the Form ................. inside back cover Chemistry component of a university-wide Over the past year the University of interdisciplinary effort (including faculty Michigan and the state of Michigan have hires in the colleges of LS&A, Engineering, been struggling to deal with the economic and the School of Natural Resources and downturn. The Chemistry Department is Environment) focused on Energy Storage overcoming these challenges by enhanc- and funded by the Interdisciplinary Junior ing our external research profile and de- Faculty Initiative through the Provost’s and velopment efforts, and by increasing the 2010 President’s offices. This initiative coin- efficiency of our teaching and research cides with a state-wide focus on research operations. The generous support of our The Regents of the University of Michigan: and development in the areas of batteries research and teaching efforts by alumni Julia Donovan Darlow, Laurence B. Deitch, Denise Ilitch, Olivia and renewable energy. (and others) has become increasingly P. Maynard, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andrew C. Richner, S. important for maintaining and enhancing Martin Taylor, Katherine E. White, Mary Sue Coleman, ex officio. We are also proud to announce that three Mary Sue Coleman, president. excellence in all areas of the department. The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity/affirmative faculty members were promoted from As- Among other efforts, this support allows us action employer. 2010 U-M DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY to engage University of Michigan under- that you are in town. I look forward to lactimidomycin. Incednine is a natural graduates in summer research projects and talking with you. macrolide isolated from the culture broth to enhance the research experience of the of Streptomyces sp. ML694-90F3. This Best wishes, Chemistry graduate students. On behalf of compound has been shown to suppress the the students and faculty who benefit from Carol Ann Fierke, Chair activity against the anti-apoptotic function this support, I thank you sincerely and Jerome and Isabella Karle Professor of of Bcl-2/Bcl-xL proteins of human small invite you to visit the Department anytime Chemistry and Professor of Biological cell lung carcinoma Ms-1 cells in 100nM Chemistry concentrations when combined with known anti-tumor drugs. Lactimidomycin is a macrolide isolated from Streptomyces amphibisporus. This natural product is a selective inhibitor of cancer cell migra- tion (100 nM range). It is also cytotoxic and exhibits antiproliferative properties Spotlight: Profiles of New Faculty in vivo against various tumors including MDA MB 231 human breast adenocarci- We highlight faculty members who have joined the Department since the last newsletter. noma. Our objective is to develop total Their appointment speaks well for our future. syntheses of these and related anticancer natural products and use those syntheses Pavel Nagorny demonstrat- as platforms for the preparation of simpler and more potent anticancer therapeutics. Assistant Professor ed therapeu- PhD: Harvard University tic value. It Glycobiology and glycoprotein syn- PostDoc: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Can- is our goal thesis is an important component of our cer Center to develop research program, and we believe that p r a c t i c a l developing new synthetic tools for the Total Synthesis, Chemical Glycobiology s y n t h e t i c carbohydrate synthesis, glycoconjugation, methods of and peptide ligation will facilitate our Research and Teaching Interests broad utility understanding of glycoprotein function and apply The research interests of our group lie and properties. Our group has a long- them to the standing interest in accessing synthetic in the areas of target-oriented synthesis and synthesis of new reaction development. The potential polysialic acids and their conjugates to complex natural products and glycocon- immunogenic proteins. 2,8-polysialic acid synthetic targets range from small mol- jugates for the studies in medicine and ecule natural products to glycoproteins of has been identified as an important small glycobiology. cell lung cancer (SCLC) marker that was Synthesis of natural products with found in nearly every patient examined. It is our ultimate goal to explore the pos- demonstrated anticancer activity is of high Department of Chemistry interest to our group. Among the various sibility of using 2,8-polysialic acids for targets that we are planning to synthesis the vaccination against small cell lung and Newsletter are the natural products incednine and related cancers. is published once a year by the Department of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 Nathaniel Szymczak could lead to Assistant Professor new ways by PhD: University of Oregon which chemi- Printed on Recycled Paper PostDoc: MIT, Cal Tech cal feedstocks are processed Energy Science, Inorganic Chemistry, and recycled Chair: Carol Fierke Materials Chemistry, with minimal Editor: Arthur J. Ashe, III Organometallic Chemistry energy input. Publication: Agnes Soderbeck H o w e v e r , Alumni News: Arthur J. Ashe, III, Robert Kuczkowski Research and Teaching Interests many aspects of the under- With a rising global population and lying science increasing industrialization, the need to behind such strategies must be developed Web Address: establish new and energy-efficient chemi- prior to large-scale implementation. To cal conversion schemes is vital. Investiga- http://www.umich.edu/~michchem address these issues, our research program tions into the discovery and implementa- E-mail: [email protected] will uncover new strategies to develop tion of innovative conversion schemes 2 2010 catalytic methods for energy recycling 2) The development of catalysts to ef- H+/H– equivalents to a substrate with par- and delivery. ficiently hydrolyze urea (typically present ticipation from the secondary coordination at ~0.3 M in urine) found in agricultural sphere of the ligand(s) and also give rise Several of these approaches are fun- and human waste streams to release ammo- to unusual modes of activation. damentally new/unexplored, which make nia and thus recycle the “fixed nitrogen.” these projects an exciting area of research A large synthetic effort is required to We will design catalysts based on cues to pursue, with the possibility to uncover develop these alternative energy recycling that Nature has provided, to facilitate the high-impact results. Our research program strategies. Therefore, our group will use binding and hydrolysis of urea at non- has several components: a variety of inorganic synthetic air-free traditional metal sites to release and recycle techniques (Schlenk, glovebox, high 1) The construction of inorganic elec- the energy-rich ammonia that is otherwise pressure reactivity) to prepare the new trocatalysts that directly regenerate a discarded. Studies based on these unusual molecular constructs