Excellence in the Central Science The Mole Street Journal Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry The Mole Street Journal Volume 18, Issue 4 January 2020 Remembering Research Pioneer and University Emeritus Professor James Faulk Hinton The department lost a He was the director of the Inside this issue: longtime faculty member, NIH NMR Core facility research pioneer and friend. until his retirement to Uni- James Faulk "Jim" Hinton, Jr., versity Professor Emeritus Letters from the 3 University Professor in 2016. outgoing and Emeritus, passed away incoming department on July 20 in Fayetteville. As director of the NIH chairs The funeral service was held NMR Core Facility, Hinton July 27. worked closely with faculty Alumni Spotlight 4 and students to develop He is survived by his wife, new NMR techniques to Barbara Elizabeth Hinton; address the goals of their Alumna Mary 5 three sons, James David projects. He developed Good Hinton, Robert Edward new NMR pulse sequences remembered Hinton and Thomas Wade to examine both the struc- Blyholder gift 7 Hinton; and five grandchil- Hinton was a pioneer in the ture and dynamics of pro- appreciated dren. Hinton was born on development of Nuclear teins. These NMR tech- May 5, 1938, in Bessemer, Magnetic Resonance (NMR) niques are being used to Alabama, to James Faulk Sr. techniques to study im- determine the structure Student 8-10 and Ouida Elva Hinton. and function of proteins achievements portant chemical and biologi- cal systems. He established that have important roles He received his B.S. degree the NMR Core Facility at the in human health, including Sin Limites 9 in 1960 from the University University of Arkansas in heart disease, brain func- program of Alabama, and his M.S. in 1971 with an NSF grant to tion, wound healing and highlights 1962 and doctorate in purchase the first major cancer. As University New Grad 11 1964 from the University NMR spectrometer at the U Professor Emeritus, Hin- Students of Georgia working with of A, a Bruker HFX-90. He ton continued to work Fall 2019 professor J.F. Johnson. went on to receive addition- closely with students and Faculty 12-21 al grants to fund state-of-the colleagues to use NMR to achievements Hinton joined the Depart- -art NMR spectrometers, address important ment of Chemistry and Bio- including a Department of biomedical problems. chemistry at the University Education grant to purchase Arkansas INBRE 22 of Arkansas as a postdoctoral Hinton also developed an Research the first high field supercon- Conference 2019 student working with ducting NMR at the U of A, Immersive 3D Virtual Real- professor Ed Amis in 1965. a Bruker 500 MHz NMR. He ity system that allows im- He was appointed assistant then wrote the section of mersion of an observer professor in 1967, was pro- the NIH COBRE grant in into a protein, in order to moted to associate professor 2000 to fund and set up 500 be able to "walk around" in 1971, professor in 1975, and 700 MHz spectrometers inside a protein to under- University Professor in 1989, with high-sensitivity cyro- stand how it functions. U and University Professor probes. neuromuscular dis- of A students and faculty Emeritus in 2016. eases. use this system to view the The Mole Street Journal Volume 18, Issue 4 Page 2 protein structures they have channel-forming ionophore Radda at Oxford University where determined by NMR and X-ray gramicidin A. Using Tl-205 NMR, they developed the crystallography, and to design they determined the thermody- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) new experiments to namics and kinetics of cation technique. Briggs went on to be- understand the function of the binding to gramicidin. Hinton come a pioneer in the protein. Many students and developed 2D NMR techniques development of MRI, which is now visitors have experienced this to determine the complete three one of the most powerful virtual reality system and have -dimensional structure of methods of medical diagnosis. been fascinated by its potential gramicidin in biological Dikoma C. Shungu, who received use in many biomedical fields, membranes, as well as the his doctorate with Hinton in 1986, including drug design. backbone and side-chain is now professor at Weill Cornell dynamics. Cation transport Medical College, and has Hinton was a pioneer in the is critically important to the developed advanced MRI tech- study of the role of monovalent transmission of nerve impulses niques to study neurological and cations such as Na+ and K+ in from one brain cell to another, metabolic disorders. biological systems. He developed and down the nerve cell axon to the Thallium 205 (Tl205) NMR stimulate the muscle. Their method to study the binding and research provided insight into transport of monovalent cations many neurological and neuro- across biological membranes by muscular diseases. ionophore antibiotics such as valinomycin, monensin, nigericin, Hinton also worked with col- nonactin and dinactin. His studies leagues to develop improved on the thermodynamics and theoretical methods to study kinetics of monovalent cation biological systems. One of his binding to these antibiotics papers with Peter Pulay is the provided greater insight into most cited scientific article to their mechanism of action, which come from the state of Arkansas. (K. Wolinski, J.F. Hinton and P. Pulay, "Efficient Implementation of the GIAO Method for NMR Chemical Shift Calculations," JACS, 112, 8251 (1990)). Hinton published over 150 arti- cles in peer-reviewed journals with his students and colleagues. He was also an outstanding Denise Greathouse teacher and mentor to Researchers at the University of Arkansas can study proteins up close undergraduate honors students and personal using a virtual reality and graduate students and program. directed the dissertations of 26 doctoral students. His graduate could lead to the development of courses were popular and improved antibiotics. graduate students held him in high esteem. Hinton's students Hinton and his students and have done exceptionally well in colleagues then focused their their careers. Richard Briggs, research on how monovalent one of Hinton's first doctor- cations are transported across al students, took a postdoctoral biological membranes by the position with professor George The Mole Street Journal Volume 18, Issue 4 Page 3 From the Chair ~ Wesley Stites (past chair) On August 31st I stepped down as the chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, after almost exactly five years in that position. The next day, September 1st, I began working as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation. I will remain on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and many of my duties in my new position will impact the department, but my focus will be broader. Matt McIntosh, who has served for the past 5 years as the vice chair, was appointed as interim chair. Matt was appointed chair of the department in November by Fulbright College Dean, Todd Shields. I'm sure that the future holds many interesting and good things for the department, but please allow me here to briefly reflect on the past five years. The university and the department, of course, have changed over the past five years. We have welcomed many new faculty and students, but one of the more notable changes has been a large-scale turnover of our staff, after many years of stability. The staff of the department is sometimes overlooked by both the faculty and the students, but as chair it was blindingly obvious to me that without the hard work of our staff both the faculty and students would be unable to do their work and studies. We have been blessed with many wonderful people in these critical positions over the course of my career here, but, as noted above, there had not been a great deal of change. Today, there is not a single person in the departmental administrative staff who is working in the same position that they occupied at the beginning of my time as chair. Indeed, there are only two people who were working in the department at the time I became chair. One of those individuals, Heather, has only recently returned to the department after spending time in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology. Hiring and working with our new staff as they learn their jobs has been one of the greatest challenges and rewards of my time as chair. I view it as a near miracle that we were able to keep going with very few hiccups as this generational change of people took place. That is due to them and not me, but I'm very proud both of the former and current people in those positions and to have played a small part in that change. The department also saw a large number of faculty positions turn over. Again, I am glad to have been given the opportunity to play a small part in this change and to welcome a wonderful group of new people into our faculty ranks. That excitement was bittersweet with the retirement of so many experienced and distinguished faculty. Many wonderful undergraduate and graduate students have passed through the department and they seem to get better every year. I am pleased that my plan to offer all our large service courses every semester has been accomplished. This change was hard to pull off, but it has equalized our spring and fall teaching loads and contributed substantially to the gains in the University's four and six year graduation rates. We aren't done with change in the department of course. Perhaps the biggest disappointment for me is that while the data clearly show that we are the second to last in funding of our teaching mission in the entire University, we have not been able to grow in numbers of faculty, staff, and teaching assistants to handle the increasing strain this is causing.