Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 1

Alpha Chi Sigma Award For outstanding achievement in scholar-ship, research and service to the depart-ment

Anna LevinaAnupong Tangpeerachaikul

Research Award For outstanding contributions in the area of research

Shion AnBrian D. McCarthyTara E. Mokhtari

Frederick D. Greene Teaching Award For outstanding contributions in the area of teaching

Shion An

Merck Index AwardFor outstanding scholarship

Shion AnAllison E. HamilosAbigail R. Koss

Daniel S. LevinePaul S. Romer

Department of Chemistry Service AwardFor significant contributions in the areaof service to the chemistry department

Daniel S. LevineBrian D. McCarthy

Outstanding Senior Thesis

Galina Mamaliga

Strem PrizeIn recognition of the best undergraduate research presentation at the Chemistry UROP Symposium on April 28, 2012.

Rocco L. Policarpo

ACS Analytical Chemistry AwardFor outstanding achievementby a junior in experimental chemistry

P. Bryan Changala

Sophomore Achievement AwardFor outstanding performance in academ-ics, research and service to the department

Eun Young ChoiDaniel A. MokhtariSuan L. Tuang

CRC Freshmen Chemistry Achievement AwardFor outstanding academic achievement in chemistry

Khetpakorn ChakarawetAlexander F. SiegenfeldMartin I. McLaughlin

Seniors Banquet continued on Page 7

Chemformation is published by Liz McGrath. The next issue will be produced in September 2012. Please convey items of interest (or mailing list changes) to Liz McGrath, Communications and Development Coordinator, Dept. of Chemistry, MIT, 18-388, Cambridge, MA 02139, 617/253-4080; 617/258-7500 (fax); e-mail: emg@ mit.edu. Current and back issues can be accessed on the Chemistry Dept. Web site http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/

A Peek Inside!

Congratulations Graduates ........2Slideshow ..................................3Summer Fellowships..................4Alumni Corner ...........................6Outreach ....................................12

ChemformationThe Newsletter of the MIT Department of Chemistry

Volume 29, Number 6, June 13, 2012http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/www/

Chemformation

CONGRATULATIONS SENIORS!

Back row: (LtoR) Nicholas Myers, Al-lison Hamilos, Brian McCarthy3rd row: (LtoR) Daniel Levine, Jennifer Hope, Ashli Davis, Paul Romer, Galina Mamaliga2nd row: (LtoR) Maryam Yoon, Eliza-beth Min, Anna Levina, Kerry Ann Box, Karis Stevenson, Shion An, Anupong (Mee) TangpeerachaikulFront row: (LtoR) Sarah (Betsy) Flow-ers, Tara Mokhtari, Camille McAvoy

Missing from photo: Siraj Ali, Wil-liam Doenlen, Abigail Koss, SangHyun Lee, Jamie Piedra, Thais Terceiro Jorge, Yuxin Xie

SENIORS RECOGNITION BANQUET - MAY 17, 2012

2012 CHEMISTRY UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT AWARDS

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Last Name First Name Middle Name Degree Date Advisor

Cotruvo Joseph Alfred PHD June StubbeCox Jason PHD June SwagerEddy Matthew Thomas PHD June GriffinHan Sun kyu PHD June MovassaghiHwang Harold Young PHD June NelsonJones Kevin C. PHD June TokmakoffKaduk Benjamin James PHD June Van Voorhis Kowalczyk Timothy Daniel PHD June Van VoorhisKozhukh Julia PHD June LippardLessing Joshua Aaron PHD June TokmakoffLichtscheidl Alejandro G. PHD June SchrockLiu Shuang PHD June SwagerLobez-Comeras Jose Miguel PHD June Swager Marshak Michael Pesek PHD June NoceraMinnihan Ellen Catherine PHD June StubbeParkhurst Rebecca Rosenberg PHD June SwagerSchnorr Jan Markus PHD June SwagerSmith Albert Andrew PHD June GriffinTeets Thomas Sebastian PHD June NoceraWerley Christopher Alan PHD June NelsonZimanyi Eric Norman PHD June CaoCho Mimi PHD Feb StubbeFlook Margaret M PHD Feb SchrockHan Hee-Sun PHD Feb BawendiSilver Nathaniel White PHD Feb TidorDebelouchina Galia Tzvetanova PHD Sept GriffinFontaine Shaun David PHD Sept Danheiser Johnson Jeremy Andrew PHD Sept NelsonLee Changhoon PHD Sept NoceraLim Jeewoo PHD Sept SwagerArizpe Luis Alfredo SM5 Sept FuChang* Ting-Kai SM5 Sept DegenTao* Ye SM5 Sept DegenFunke Peter M SM5 Feb WilliamsonKohnen Amanda Lucille SM5 Feb Danheiser Bencivenga Nicholas Ernest PHD June FuHorning# Andrew Davis SM5 June TokmakoffMork# Anna Jolene SM5 June Swager *Continued as MIT Student, Will earn Chemistry PhD from MIT - on nonresident status at ETH #Continuing as MIT Student, Will earn Chemistry PhD from MIT (switching research groups)

2012 Masters and PhD Degree Recipients!

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To view a slideshow of Hooding and Commencement click here

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When Richard R. Schrock, Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, won the Nobel Prize in 2005, the department set up an endowed summer fellowship in his honor. The fund, largely supported by Professor Schrock's graduate

students and postdocs, and kicked-off with a generous gift from Mr. Dick Simmons '53, has now accrued sufficient interest from principle to award the first fellowship. It is anticipated that the fellowship will be offered every three years until such time as it can support an annual awardee.

The first recipient is Tarun Narayan in the Dincă Group. Tarun works with Professor Dincă in the inorganic chemistry division on the synthesis and characterization of porous, conductive, and ordered materials. In order to achieve their goal, the group uses materials that are intrinsically ordered and porous, namely metal-organic frameworks, and attempts to introduce conductivity through molecular design. Metal-organic frameworks are comprised of inorganic units joined together with organic molecules. The chemistry of electroactive organic molecules is very well developed, so they modify these molecules that exhibit high conductivity to include groups that can bind to the inorganic units. As a result, they are able to organize these organic components in a lattice delineated by the inorganic nodes to provide an avenue for electrical conduction, while exhibiting permanent porosity due to the geometry imposed by the inorganic units.

SUMMER GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS

GEORGE H. BÜCHI ENDOWED SUMMER FELLOWSHIPOver the past few years, the department has been fortunate to recieve a number of generous donations

from alumni resulting in endowed and expendable summer graduate fellowships.

The George H. Buchi endowed summer fellowship was established by Dr. Ping S. Chu, PhD '80, as a tribute to his late advisor, George H. Büchi. Jenny Liu, Johnson group, has been selected to be the recipient of the fellowship this summer.

Jenny's work in the Johnson lab focuses on two projects. One involves the synthesis of brush-like polymers, which will contain domains for cell internalization, cell targeting, imaging, and drug delivery. This will be accomplished through living ring opening metathesis polymerization of norbornene functionalized target molecules along with norbornene-functionalized polyethylene glycol (PEG). The other project will involve three-dimensional cell encapsulation within hydrogels as model extracellular matrix mimics to study cell invasive behavior. The PEG linkers will be crosslinked through

tetrazine-norbornene coupling chemistry and will also incorporate peptide domains to affect cell behavior in gels, such as cell adhesion and protease degradation sites.

FIRST RICHARD R. SCHROCK ENDOWED SUMMER FELLOWSHIP

ANN AND PAUL STEINFELD ENDOWED SUMMER FELLOWSHIP

The Ann and Paul Steinfeld Memorial Summer Fellowship was established by Professor Emeritus Jeffrey I. Steinfeld in memory of his parents, Ann and Paul Steinfeld. Jessica McCombs, Johnson group, has been selected to be the

recipient of the fellowship this summer. As a part of the Johnson lab, Jessica is interested in the development of new materials-based synthetic methods for environmental sustainability. Her projects focus on the design and synthesis of new types of polymer supported catalysts for carbon dioxide sequestration and conversion, new photochemical approaches for controlled surface patterning at the nano-scale, and synthesis of new polymeric architectures for self-assembled organic photovoltaics and nano-fluidics. The

first of these projects utilizes new polymer supported N-heterocyclic carbene organo-catalysts for the metal-

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Summer fellowships (continued from Page 4)

free sequestration and conversion of CO2 into useful products. The second projects applies the classic reversible photoisomerization of norbornadiene to quadicyclane in a new context: surface chemistry. Here, she uses light to reversibly deactivate regions of a surface; active regions can be readily functionalized using standard olefin reaction chemistry while deactivated regions can be re-activated thermally or via exposure to a cobalt catalyst. This novel strategy will allow for facile preparation of multi-functional surfaces in fewer steps with greater control and less environmental impact. The third project utilizes efficient polymerization techniques to develop multi-block branched-brush polymers that will self-assemble into novel architectures, which could lead to increased efficiencies for energy conversion in organic solar cells. Because the Johnson lab is so new, the possibilities are endless and Jessica is very excited to see where our materials-centered research leads us.

The C.P. Chu and Y. Lai Summer Fellowship was estab-lished by Dr. Ping S. Chu, PhD '80 in honor of his parents, C.P. Chu and Y. Lai. Two recipients will benefit from the

fellowship this year: Minyuan Li in the Dincă group and Mark Simon in the Pentelute group. Minyuan's research focuses on fabricating substrate-mounted thin films of metal-organic frame-works, which are coordination polymers with very high porosity. Utilizing an electrodeposition approach, he can electrochemically reduce a base precursor to initiate ligand deprotonation and subse-quently crystallization on the electrode surface to obtain devices geared towards gas separation and sensing. His current work consists of exploring differ-

ent synthetic conditions to tune product selectivity in a one-pot system and developing a general, facile, and fast method suitable for industry.

Mark's research goal is to produce fully synthetic spider silk and tune its properties using non-natural amino acids. The mechanical properties of the natural silk and webs of Nephila clavipes, a common spider, were recently de-scribed in detail by Cranford, et al (Nature 482, 72–76). To catch prey, silk must be strong and flexible to absorb the energy of a flying insect. To meet this need, a fiber has evolved that is initially stiff, to retain its shape in the wind and as the spider runs across it. As it’s loaded, it quickly becomes quite elastic, stretching to one and a half times its original length before again stiffening prior to failure. If the strand is not taken to failure, it returns to its original length. This complex, reversible stress-strain profile is unlike any current synthetic fibers. Mark believes that fibers mimicking the structure of these natural products can be tuned to produce arbitrary stress-strain profiles with ultimate failure strength similar to Kevlar.

Minyuan Li Mark Simon

FIRST STEPHEN J. LIPPARD ENDOWED SUMMER FELLOWSHIP

When Stephen J. Lippard, Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry, was awarded the 2004 National Science Medal in 2006, the department set up an endowed summer fellowship in his honor. The fund, largely supported by

Professor Lippard's graduate students and postdocs, and kicked-off with a generous gift from Mr. Dick Simmons '53, has now accrued sufficient interest from principle to award the first fellowship. It is anticipated that the fellowship will be offered every three years until such time as it can support an annual awardee.

The first recipient has been chosen as Megan Brophy, Nolan group. The human innate immune response serves as the first line of defense against invading pathogens. One

strategy employed by white blood cells is to bind and sequester essential nutrients. One protein used in this man-ner is the S100 heterodimer calprotectin (CP), which is able to chelate nutritional zinc(II) and manganese(II) to

Summer Fellowships continued on Page 6

C.P. CHU AND Y. LAI ENDOWED SUMMER FELLOWSHIPS

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Dr. Suzanne Bruhn who received her doctoral degree under Professor Stephen J. Lippard in 1992, has been appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer of Promedior, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology

company developing novel biologic therapeutics for the treatment of fibrosis. Dr. Bruhn takes on the role of CEO at a time when Promedior is rapidly advancing its product candidates in human clinical trials for diseases involving fibrosis, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), myelofibrosis, and retinal diseases. She is a seasoned biopharmaceutical leader with experience growing early stage R&D programs through clinical development and product commercialization.

Additionally, as part of the company's evolution, Promedior will move its headquarters and operations to the Boston area to access planned new hires in research and clinical drug development.

Dr. Bruhn has also been appointed to the Board of Directors for Promedior.

Prior to joining Promedior, Dr. Bruhn was Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning and Program Management for Shire's Human Genetic Therapies (HGT) division, where she played a key leadership role in the development of multiple protein therapeutics for orphan diseases with annual sales today of more than $1 billion. During her tenure at Shire and Transkaryotic Therapies (acquired by Shire in 2005), Dr. Bruhn was instrumental in advancing new compounds through clinical development and commercialization with significant roles driving product strategy, portfolio management, program management, and global Regulatory Affairs for the rare disease portfolio. Prior to that she was at Cytotherapeutics, Inc., and played a key role developing the encapsulated cell technology platform for ophthalmic delivery. She serves on the Board of Directors of Raptor Pharmaceuticals, a public biotechnology company, and Crittenton Women's Union (CWU), a local non-profit organization helping low-income women.

After earning her PhD at MIT, Dr. Bruhn was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Human Genetics at Harvard Medical School. She carried out her undergraduate studies at Iowa State University.

Alumni Corner

PROMEDIOR APPOINTS SUZANNE L. BRUHN, PHD '92

Summer Fellowships continued from Page 5

The Walter L. Hughes Memorial Summer fellowship was established by Dr. Hughes' daughters and friends of the family in 2010. Dr. Walter L. Hughes, recipient of both undergraduate and graduate degrees at MIT, had a distinguished career in biochemistry, focusing his life’s work on developing the scientific building

WALTER L. HUGHES EXPENDABLE SUMMER FELLOWSHIP

starve bacteria. Despite the importance of this protein, there have been few attempts to identify and characterize the transition metal ion binding sites of CP. The goals of Megan's project are to characterize the sites of metal binding and examine the properties of the metal/protein complex. Using a combined spectroscopic and biochemi-cal approach, she and her lab mates have determined that two motifs located at the dimer interface are capable of binding cobalt(II) and zinc(II), and an unusual histidine-rich motif binds manganese(II) tightly. The group's future work in this area will focus on elucidating the structural consequences of transition metal-ion binding.

blocks that have led to significant advancements in diagnostic and therapeutic protocols for cancer. Summer Fellowships continued on Page 15

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Seniors Banquet (continued from Page 1)

SENIOR BIOGRAPHIES 2012Shion AnShion An is a chemistry and biology major from Los Angeles, CA, though she was technically born in rural Japan, but also spent time in Tokyo, then lived on the island of Jeju in South Korea for a while too... so she is a confused child who has trouble answering the question, "Where are you from?" She en-joyed chemistry and biology in high school, but came to MIT thinking about majoring in course 1 because of her interests in earthquakes. Then 5.111 with Professor Drennan and Dr. Tay-lor made her realize that chemistry is the way to go. She also loves teaching, and in addition to tutoring and TA-ship, pursued MIT's teacher education program in course 11 for high school chemistry. She hopes to continue inspiring younger students on how awesome chemistry is and be part of the effort to address the issues in education today. Outside of academics, Shion has spent much of her time with the Cross Products, the Christian a cappella group at MIT, her sisters in Kappa Alpha Theta, and with members of Asian Christian Fellowship. Shion also enjoys cooking, exploring new cities, and finding random cafes with great coffee. As she says, "The best part of MIT wasn't the aca-demics- though they are spectacular- it was that I made lifelong friends". Next year, Shion will be attending UC Berkeley's MCB Graduate Program. Go Cals!

Kerry Ann R. BoxKerry Box was born and raised in Wichita, KS. Please no Wizard of Oz jokes; she's had her fair share! When she came to MIT, she had no idea what she wanted to major in and ended up picking a major by process of elimination--she was down to 5 and 20 but went with 5 because she's always loved chemistry. Kerry played varsity soccer for MIT during her first two years here at MIT but due to injury, has retired and now participates in as many IM

sports as possible. To keep herself sane, she drums with MIT Rambax, a Senegalese drumming group on campus. Outside of these activities, Kerry likes listening to music, playing spades (a card game), and just hanging out with friends. Thanks to Me-linda's heads up, Kerry ventured out to a career fair earlier this semester and is now looking forward to starting her new job with Intel in Phoenix, AZ this fall.

Ashli DavisAshli is a local chemistry major from Boston, MA. Chemistry had been her worst subject in high school, so she came to MIT with the intentions of avoiding chemistry at all costs by only taking the necessary pre-med requirements. However, to her surprise, the MIT Chemistry Department opened a whole new perspective on the discipline that lead to many interesting op-portunities. At the start of her junior year, she made the daring choice of changing her major to Course V, and that decision would prove to be the best she could have ever made. The expe-rience she gained through chemistry coursework landed a chance to UROP at The Broad Institute in the Cancer Program. She has since been working with a research team geared to provide tar-geted therapy for specific mutated melanomas; a project that has been accepted for publishing in Nature. When not in class or in the lab, Ashli has built a reputation on campus as a hip hop dancer. She has performed in multiple shows and competitions on and off campus as a member of several teams including: MIT Mocha Moves, MIT Ridonkulous, Project Nailz, and MIT Dance Troupe. Besides being a chemistry student, research assistant, and dancer, Ashli enjoys her family the most. Her best moments are spent gardening with her mother, fishing with her father, and traveling with her sister.

Bryan ChangalaProf. Kit Cummins presenting Alexander Siegenfeld with the CRC Freshmen award

Prof. Joanne Stubbe with Tara Mokhtari (senior) and Daniel Mokhtari (sophomore) -- brother and sister.

Seniors with Melinda Cerny, Retiring Assistant Direc-tor of Chemistry Education Office

Senior, Karis Stevenson

Prof. John Essigmann, Camille McAvoy and Jennifer Hope

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Seniors Banquet (continued from Page 5)William R. DoenlenWill Doenlen is a chemistry major from Pensacola, Florida, the il-lustrious "Red-Snapper Capital of the World" and the crown jewel of the "Redneck Riviera." After brief stints as math and physics majors, he started taking course 5 classes on a whim and felt so compelled by the beauty in synthetic chemistry that he decided to major in chemistry. He spent much of his time UROPing in the Imperiali Lab, where he synthesized vibrantly-colored organ-ic fluorophores with interesting physical properties. Outside of class, Will enjoys reading far too many non-school-related books, spending time at his living group tEp, writing poetry, fiddling with computers, and developing askew anthropological theories. He will be traveling to China to teach and do research in theoreti-cal chemistry before attending UC Berkeley in Fall 2013.

__, .-. .-. C ampaigning (__ _ | \/ | _ A gainst (_|||\__/||(/_| M isuse of the || || |_ E nglish _|| _|| L anguage

Sarah E. FlowersAlthough her driver’s license and course-registration-information both say her name is Sarah Flowers, ever since she was born in Houston, Texas, she has been called “Betsy”. Ever since then, she has blamed her parents for this discrepancy. Betsy is a course 5 major and a music minor. Her involvement in course 5 began her sophomore year as a TA for 5.111 in ESG. The summer after her sophomore year, she started playing course 5 volleyball on the “Schrock you like a hurricane” team. Her UROP in the Schrock group has taught her two things: firstly, that she loves organome-tallic chemistry and glove box synthesis; and secondly, that she is terrible at volleyball. In the summer after her junior year, she took a medicinal chemistry internship at Merck, which reaffirmed her love for synthesis. Betsy is also a classically trained soprano, and in her free time has starred in seven Gilbert and Sullivan operet-tas, two MTG musicals, and has been featured as a soloist in two performances with the MIT Concert Choir. This fall she is look-ing forward to pursuing a Ph.D in Chemistry at the University of Washington.

Allison E. HamilosAllison is an adventurous chemistry and biology major who loves exploring new places, playing lacrosse, laughing rambunctiously, chewing bubblegum, and making new friends. Vying with her much older siblings for attention as a child, she grew up delight-ing in making everyone around her laugh. Through entertaining, her creativity blossomed. She grew enchanted with metaphor, wordplay, clever banter, and cracking jokes. To this day, she's drawn to vibrant, neon clothing and quirky music, and she loves nothing better than engaging in off-the-cuff repartee with anyone who’ll play along. At MIT, she has enjoyed playing varsity la-crosse, coaching youth volleyball, teaching and mentoring, writ-ing health articles for The Tech, singing in the chamber and con-cert choirs, and throwing parties for Simmons Hall. Next year, she will be attending Harvard Medical School for their joint track with MIT in the Health Sciences and Technology program. She anxiously awaits meeting new friends there and learning how to be a physician scientist whose research can make a difference for her patients. Allison loves MIT and everyone in Course V with all her heart. She will miss them dearly, but hopes the friendships they have shared will last a lifetime.

Jennifer M. HopeJen Hope hails from the small town of Carriere (pronounced “CAY-rear” or “career”), Mississippi, which is just plain easier to explain to people as “about an hour away from New Orleans.” An amazing high school mentor had her enamored with chemis-try, but when she got to MIT, her artistic side wondered when it would get its turn. This led to a year and a half long torrid tryst with the department of architecture. After a while though, Jen realized that it was easier from a legal standpoint to make pretty things in her spare time than to do chemistry from her dorm room, and decided to return to her first love as a major and career path. She’s been a member of the Lippard lab since his initial leap of faith last January and has greatly enjoyed her experience with sci-entific research. To sate the artist within, Jen has managed to find a little bit of time for a lot of different pursuits, from argentine tango and bellydancing to drawing for campus publications to photography (on both sides of the camera!). After graduation Jen will be fleeing the country to do cancer research and eat delicious food in Lyon, France. Upon her return, she plans to find work in a biomedical research lab in the Boston area and to make her way to medical school…eventually.

Anna LevinaAnna Levina, who goes by Ania, is chemistry major from Kharkiv, Ukraine. She was born into a family of chemists. Ever since she was a child, Ania have lived in the mesmerizing world of science books, enticed by cryptic organic structures and colorful electron density maps. Consequently, she gravitated towards chemistry, gradually and implacably. Not surprisingly, as a freshman at MIT Ania declared chemistry as her major. She is very excited to pur-sue graduate studies in organic chemistry at Harvard University starting next fall.

Daniel S. LevineDaniel Levine is a dual degree major in chemistry and mathemat-ics from Succasunna, NJ (which is a really wonderful place). He came to MIT wanting to study catalysts and was lucky enough to turn out to be right about that. He was thinking about studying courses 3, 5, 8, or 18, and picked two of them, picking up a biol-ogy minor on the way. After talking with Professor Schrock one day after 5.112 lecture, Daniel has been working in the Schrock lab since December of his freshman year. He worked in Lyon, France for a summer through the MISTI program. When not in lab, he can be found captaining the MIT varsity fencing team for two years, performing (and writing last IAP's musical) for the Musical Theater Guild, and doing lots of baking in French House. He will be attending UC Berkeley for graduate school after enjoy-ing his first summer with no chemistry research since 2006.

Galina MamaligaGalina was born and raised in Moldova, a tiny country in Eastern Europe. Then, a few years ago, her family moved to KY, and she went for part of high school and part of college there. Mid-soph-omore year, Galina transferred from the University of Louisville to MIT, where she was thinking of majoring in brain and cogni-tive sciences. However, after taking 5.12, she decided there was no major more fun than chemistry, and she quickly switched to course five. She started doing a UROP in professor Danheiser’s lab and continued there for the next few summers. Outside of class and lab, Galina likes volleyball, teaching, Israeli dancing, medicine, and French. This summer she’s going to Paris through

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MIT’s MISTI program. She hopes to work for a year and then go to medical school.

Camille Z. McAvoyCamille McAvoy is a double major in Courses 5 and 10.ENG. Understanding the vast superiority of chemistry to chemical en-gineering, she worked as a UROP in the Buchwald Lab during her time at MIT. Originally from sunny Florida, she will be chas-ing the sunshine in California at Caltech as she pursues a PhD in biochemistry. In her spare time, Camille enjoys frequenting art museums and musicals.

Brian D. McCarthyBrian hails from Hillsboro, Oregon, which is approximately 12 miles west of Portland, Oregon (which is just like Portlandia). He spent his childhood playing with Legos, plastic dinosaurs and digging a hugmongous hole in the backyard with his brother. Sometimes he is amazed he didn't end up doing engineering or earth science, but he is very happy to have found Course V. At MIT Brian spent his time UROPing in the labs of Professor Noc-era and Professor Dinca, doing some solar-energy type research, while also playing for three consecutive summers in the world renowned MIT chemistry summer volleyball league. Next year he will be hopefully continue working on his volleyball skills and tangentially begin graduate work in chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill.

Tara E. MokhtariTara Mokhtari is a chemistry major from Eden Prairie, MN. She declared course 5 without ever having taken a class in the depart-ment, but she couldn’t give up her other two passions as minors—biology and music. She joined the Lippard lab as a sophomore and has been working with platinum anticancer agents ever since. Outside of academics, Tara kept herself occupied by playing with the MIT Symphony Orchestra as principal violist, performing with the MIT Chamber Music Society, volunteering at the day-care center in Stata, and working as an Associate Advisor. She also enjoys traveling and went to China and Germany through the CETI and MISTI programs. Next year, Tara is heading to sunny California to start medical school at Stanford. Her greatest MIT accomplishment: finally taking and passing her swim test in late April!

Nicholas J. MyersNick is a Course V major with San Antonio in his heart. His jour-ney began in a much different place, born in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. From there he spent a brief time in Panama, Ohio, and Virginia before finding his true home in Texas. After his journey to find a home he quickly left for MIT. As much as he wandered finding a home in life, and MIT (living in 5 different places over 4 years at MIT), he never struggled finding the subject that he loved. Nick knew that chemistry was his true love and never looked back. Even though he studied, and loved chemistry, his research took him to strange new lands with a stint in bioengineering, neuroscience, and material science. Of course this led him straight to the throes of medical school. When asked why he decided medicine over a life at the lab bench he stated that after four years of EMS at MIT he thought medicine was “cool”. He will be attending UT Houston medical school next year as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force, and similar to how he found a home he will try to choose a medical specialty by trying them all.

Paul S. RomerPaul Romer came to college with a vague plan to study chemistry, and despite a multitude of diversions along the way, that's more or less how it went. He was especially thrilled when he discovered the existence of physical chemistry and he hopes that a job title of Quantum Mechanic exists somewhere in his future. The vast majority of his time not taken up by academics has been spent with his beloved MIT Shakespeare Ensemble as well as any other theater productions he could get his hands on. Next year he plans on returning home to the incomparable San Francisco bay area to pursue a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.

Karis E. StevensonKaris is from Lake Orion, MI. She first discovered her love for chemistry in high school when she took an introductory chemistry class at a local community college. When she got to MIT, she explored many different science and engineering fields but none were as cool and amazing as chemistry. Karis loves balancing school with athletics, and competed for the MIT Gymnastics team for three years. She also loves interacting with her fellow McCor-mick residents and is involved in house government and manages the front desk. She is planning on working during a gap year and applying to medical schools.

Anupong TangpeerachaikulAnupong Tangpeerachaikul, aka. Mee, was born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. He went to an international high school on the beautiful fjords of Norway for two years before coming to MIT. Here, he is a double-major in chemistry and biology (7-A), with a concentration in Chinese. He has been doing research on fluorescence labeling of proteins inside living cells in the Ting Lab since freshman year. He has also spent his academic adventure as a teacher, having been a TA for 5.13, a long-time chemistry tutor, and an instructor for high school summer studies. Outside of class and lab, he enjoys singing (in fact, many of you had to endure his vocals during lab classes), hiking, kayaking and badminton. He also appreciates simple pleasures of strolling, eating and shopping with close friends, host family or Thai students around the area. In the next many years, Mee will relocate to Harvard University, pursuing a doctoral degree in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, so he will visit MIT frequently and you know where to find him if you ever return to Boston!

Yoon, Maryam A.Maryam was born in San Diego, CA but thanks to an overly ad-venturous mother she moved with her family to Yemen where she spent her days playing outside and learning as many Arabic bad words as possible. When she was 7 years old Maryam moved back to the U.S. where she learned English as a second language and tried very hard to understand why there would ever be a need for the silent 'e.' Having been home schooled throughout middle school, Maryam attended a Catholic all girls high school run by sisters of the Dominican Order in Nashville, TN. There she learned that chemistry made little to no sense and that sisters get very, very mad if you campaign for Obama in your school uni-form. At the end of freshman year at MIT Maryam realized that chemistry was actually super cool to study and declared Course 5 as her major. Maryam worked on a UROP project in the Swager lab where she had the chance to synthesize and ogle liquid crys-tals and learned that device fabrication is not quite as straight-forward as you might imagine. Now Maryam is making plans to move to the Big Apple to keep studying organic electronic materi-als chemistry at Columbia University.

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OTHER RECOGNITIONSPhi Beta Kappa 2012 Inductees Allison E. HamilosAbigail R. KossAnna LevinaDaniel S. LevineTara E. MokhtariAnupong Tangpeerachaikul

Xigma Xi, The Scientific Research SocietyNominees for Associate MembershipShion AnKerry Ann R. BoxWilliam R. DoenlenAllison E. HamilosJennifer M. HopeAbigail R. KossAnna LevinaDaniel S. Levine

Galina MamaligaCamille Z. McAvoyBrian D. McCarthyTara E. MokhtariAnupong TangpeerachaikulThais B. Terceiro JorgeYuxin XieMaryam A. Yoon

Randolf G. Wei UROP AwardAnupong Tangpeerachaikul

Department of Chemistry AMITA NomineeTara E. Mokhtari

We take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to the following chemistry majors for their service this year to the department and the field of chemistry.

TutoringFall 2011 and Spring 2012 in 5.03, 5.07, 5.111, 5.112, 5.12, 5.13, 5.60, 5.61

Shion AnBara BadwanRachel BandlerTatiana BergerBryan ChangalaEun Young ChoiWen ChyanJared FormanClarissa FornerisAllison HamilosAnna LevinaDaniel LevineAmy LinAngela MaBrian McCarthyElijah MenaTara MokhtariDilmurat Moldobaev

Sebastian NasamuJessica NossErin O’BrienKatherine SilvestreSasilada SirirungruangAnupong TangpeerachaikulThais Terceiro JorgeIvanov VsevolodChau VuMaryam Yoon

Course V AmbassadorsGiving lab tours, performing “Magic Shows”, assisting with Freshmen events

Shion AnRachel Bandler Bryan ChangalaAllison HamilosJennifer Hope

Sean KarsonSumin KimDaniel LevineBrian McCarthyTara MokhtariKatherine SilvestreSuan TuangIvanov Vsevolod

Spring Banquet (continued from Page 6)

Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 11

MYERS DELIVERS PFIZER-MIT LECTURE IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRYPhoto/Liz M

cGrath

Professor Andrew Myers, Harvard University Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, visited the department on May 10 to deliver the Pfizer-MIT Lecturer in Organic Chemistry. Professor Myers' lecture was titled: "Chemical Synthesis Directed Toward the Discovery of New Medicines for the Treatment of

Human Disease." The lecture was hosted by Professor Mo Movassaghi who carried out his graduate studies under Professor Myers at Harvard University.

L-R: Dr. Mark Noe (Pfizer), Dr. Mark Bunnage (Pfizer), Dr. Vincent Mascitti (Pfizer), Dr. Steve Wright (Pfizer), Dr. Spiros Liras (Pfizer), Professor Rick Danheiser (MIT), Professor Andy Myers (Harvard), Professor Mo Movassaghi (MIT), Dr. Katherine Lee (Pfizer), Dr. Jo-tham Coe (Pfizer), Dr. Natasha Kablaoui (Pfizer), Dr. Rob Maguire (Pfizer), Dr. Aaron Smith (Pfizer).

Professor Neil Garg from the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; Professor Abigail Doyle from the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University; Jeff Bandar (Columbia University); Alexandria P. Brucks (Columbia University); Julian A. Codelli (California Institute of Technology); Keary Mark Engle (The Scripps Research Institute); Will R. Gutekunst (The Scripps Re-search Institute); Alexander D. Huters (UCLA); Justin Kim, Movassaghi group (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Aaron Lackner (University of California-Berkeley); Lynn McGregor (Harvard University); Paul A. Novick (Stanford University); Christina M. Woo (Yale University); Yingda Ye (University of Michigan)

ROCHE SYMPOSIUM SHOWCASES EXPERTISE OF UP AND COMING CHEMISTS

Roche recently honored 12 outstanding PhD students and two professors with the company’s Excellence in Chemistry Award for research accomplishments in the fields of synthetic organic chemistry, bio-organic chemis-try, and computational chemistry. The winners, who participated in Roche’s annual two-day Roche Symposium: Excellence in Chemistry, gained first-hand knowledge on the important role chemistry plays in pharmaceutical discovery.

The symposium serves to recognize graduate students and faculty members who are providing significant ad-vances various fields of chemistry. During the event, students had opportunities to discuss their research projects, hear about the drug discovery process from Roche scientists, as well as case histories in medicinal and process chemistry.

Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 12

BROOKLINE HIGH STUDENTS VISIT Outreach

Brookline High School soph-omores visited the Bawendi lab in addition to the MIT

Nuclear Reactor as a chemistry class field trip. They were given a short introduction to the science of quan-tum dots and some of the material applications to connect chemistry concepts with things they see in the real world like touchscreens. High-lights of the lab tour included seeing a big laser, observing brightly glow-ing quantum dots of many colors, and marveling at the idea of doing

chemistry inside a glovebox. The tour wrapped up with a question-and-answer session about what it's like to be a student at MIT, how cutting-edge research is both similar to and different from the science in textbooks, and different jobs that use chemistry.

ELIE SHAIO MEMORIAL AWARD

Orly Slavin a chemistry graduate student currently doing research in Professor Collin Stults'z lab has been chosen by the Office of the Dean for Graduate Students (ODGE) to receive the Elie Shaio Memorial Award.

Orly focuses on studying intrinsically disordered proteins, a class of proteins notorious for their involvement in diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Orly works under the supervision of Professor Collin Stultz from the EECS department, using molecular dynamics simulations and other computational tools to help elucidate how these proteins contribute to the progression of disease.

Darcy Wanger (forefront), Bawendi group, pictured with Brookline students in the laser lab

Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 13

Recent Publications

Dinca Lab: Lattice-imposed geometry in metal–organic frameworks: lacunary Zn4O clusters in MOF-5 serve as tripodal chelating ligands for Ni2+

Swager lab: Proteases are over-expressed in most can-cers and proteolytic activity has been shown to be a vi-able marker for cancer imaging in vivo. The Swager group has developed a new method for detecting prote-ases based upon organic nanoparticles (a). The nanopar-ticles are structurally complex and are formed from the assembly of penta-block copolymers, which have a or-ganic semiconducting luminescent core, a hydrophilic outer shell for water solubility, and a reactive segment for crosslinking with peptides (a). The particles are effec-tively compressed by the crosslinked peptide network (c) and the particles are quenched with a low luminescence. Cleavage of the peptides effectively relieves the strain and allows the particles to expand and an an increase in luminescence is observed (b).

Nicolas Boyer of the Movassaghi group has developed a concise and stereoselective Friedel–Crafts-based strategy to provide an ef-ficient multigram-scale access to the C3-(3'-indolyl)hexahydropyr-roloindole substructure, a molecular foundation present in a sig-nificant subset of epipolythiodiketopiperazine natural alkaloids.The first-generation solution to (+)-gliocladin B involved the stereose-lective formation of (+)-12-deoxybionectin A, a plausible biosyn-thetic precursor. The synthesis clarified the C15 stereochemistry of (+)-gliocladin B and allowed its full structure confirmation. Further studies of a versatile dihydroxylated diketopiperazine provided a concise and efficient synthesis of (+)-gliocladin B as well as access to (+)-gliocladin C.

Swager lab: Comparing apples and oranges

New sensor can accurately measure fruits’ ripeness, helping prevent loss of produce from spoilage. Every year, U.S. supermarkets lose roughly 10 percent of their fruits and vegetables to spoilage, according to the Department of Agriculture. >>

Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 14

MIT ADVANCED STUDY PROGRAM The Advanced Study Program provides professionals in industry and government the opportunity to enroll in MIT credit courses to further their knowledge for their organization and to advance their own careers. If you are interested in taking Chemistry related courses for one or more semesters, on a full or part-time basis, while still working and contributing to your company, the Advanced Study Program provides you the vehicle to do just that! Follow the Course Listing link to see a list of all of the courses available. Earn grades, MIT credit, and a certificate of completion. For more information about the MIT Professional Education Advanced Study Program, please visit: http://web.mit.edu/professional/advanced-study/index.html Short Programs This summer Short Programs is offering a number of 2-5 day short courses taught by MIT faculty and experts, including several by members of the Chemistry Department. These courses provide an opportunity to learn crucial knowledge and skills from some of the top experts in their respective fields, in areas of MIT expertise. For complete details on all of the available courses, visit the Short Programs website. Below is a list of courses taught by members of the MIT Chemistry Department: Flow Chemistry: Continuous Synthesis and Purification of Pharmaceuticals [10.65s]http://web.mit.edu/professional/short-programs/courses/flow_chemistry.html June 25-27, 2012 | $2,200 | 1.5 CEUs Lead Instructors: T. Jamison, K. Jensen Overview of principles and technologies of continuous synthesis and purification of small molecules. Covers advantages and challenges of flow in comparison to batch, decision process for selecting between continuous or batch methods for a particular problem, automation and scale-up strategies. Emphasizes cutting-edge methods, technologies, and case studies. Controlled Release Technology: Polymeric Delivery Systems for Pharmaceuticals, Proteins, and Other Agents [10.02s]http://web.mit.edu/professional/short-programs/courses/controlled_release_technology.htmlJuly 9-13, 2012 | $3,250 | 2.7 CEUs Lead Instructor: R. Langer Additional lectures by: A .Klibanov Review the field and assess the prospects of future developments in the delivery and stabilization of chemicals and drugs. Topics include delivery methods and applications, with emphasis on controlled release in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. Regulatory and patent considerations will be addressed. Solar Energy: Capturing the Sun [PI.70s]http://web.mit.edu/professional/short-programs/courses/solar_energy.htmlJuly 23-27, 2012 | $3,500 | 3.0 CEUs Lead Instructor: D. Nocera This course will focus on sunlight, a sustainable and renewable carbon-neutral energy source. Science targeting efficient utilization of solar energy is inherently interdisciplinary, involving biology, inorganic and organic synthesis, solid state chemistry and physics, electrochemistry, chemical kinetics and mechanism, and theoretical and computational chemistry/biology. In addition, it involves concepts of homogeneous and interfacial science between solids, liquids, and gases. The course will focus on the science needed from these disciplines to develop the fundamental enabling science that will contribute to and ultimately lead to a solution of delivering clean energy, in the form of chemical fuels, produced from the sun.

Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 15

Pictured with Professors Rick Danheiser and Tim Jamison are the winners of this year's Organic Chemistry Poetry Competition.

Tying for first place were Martin McLaughlin, Class of 2015, and Jennifer B. Plotkin also Class of 2015. Martin 's poem, "Ode" was inspired by Thomas Gray's epic poem by the same name. “Bromonium Rhapsody” based on “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, garnered Jennifer her joint first place. In second place was Stephen D. Johnson, MIT Navy ROTC, and Class of 2015, for his poem collection under the title of "A Patriotic Organic Chemistry Tribute". Shannon Kao, Class of 2015, and Praveen Venkataramana, Class of 2014, received Hon-orable Mentions for their poems entitled, “5.12: A Villanelle” and “Lines Composed a Few Angstroms Above Methyl Vinyl Ketone” respectively.

Professor Rick Danheiser began running a poetry competition when he was teaching 5.13 - the first contest was in 1994. He continued this practice through 2000 (7 years), reviving the contest (with basically the exact same format) in 5.12 during the second year (2009) he taught 5.12 with Professor Tim Jamison.

The poems can be read on the 5.12 website.

2012 ORGANIC CHEMISTRY POETRY COMPETITION

L-R: Tim Jamison, Jennifer Plotkin, Stephen Johnson, Praveen Venkataramana, Martin McLaughlin, Shannon Kao, Rick Danheiser

The recipient of the 2012 Hughes fellowship is Alan Burts, a second year graduate stu-dent in the Johnson group. Alan's research focuses on combining organic and polymer chemistry to synthesize functional polymers with real world applications; specifically polymers for biomaterials applications such as drug delivery, tissue regeneration, gene therapy, etc. Alan's future goals consist of developing a polymeric drug delivery sys-tem that can one day be used to treat diseases in humans and utilizing the vast toolkit chemistry provides to mimic the materials made by Mother Nature.

Summer Graduate Fellowships (continued from page 6)

Chemformation, Vol 29, no. 5 Page 16

2012 CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT TSHIRT WINNERS

The prize for the design of the 2012 Chemistry Department TShirt goes this year to: D.W. Rowlands, Chris Leon, Beth Hocking, and Qing Liu in the Ceyer group. Runners up were Stephanie Teo (Nelson group) and Harris Liu (Klibanov group).

L-R: D.W. Rowlands, Beth Hocking, Qing Liu and Chris Leon

Institution/Company # Level of Hire Area TenureTrack

Kansas State University 1 Assistant Prof.

Visiting Professor in Organic Chemistry No

Curry College 1 Lecturer Adjunct Lecturer and Adjunct Lab InstructorChemical Concepts (Nursing Chemistry)

N/a

LCPQ, CEMES and LCAR) Toulouse, France

1 Postdoc Collaborative Initiative for Molecular and Mate-rial Modeling

N/a

Merck Research Labs Boston

2 PhDs (or soon to be)

Plan and execute studies to assess physico-chemical properties and formulations of new drug candidates

Institute for Atom-effi-cient Chemical Transfor-mations (IACT)

>1 Postdocs Fundamental research on the structure and function of biomass conversion catalysts.

W. L. Gore and Associ-ates, Inc

1 PhD Polymer Interface / Surface Scientist.

Southern Teachers Agency >1 SB Teaching positions

Please contact Liz McGrath, emg@mit.edu, for details