News

Thanks to the support of the Chemistry Major's Union, WiSE and the Department, the first Women in Chemistry Brunch was held on Friday, April 24.  The event, an integrative, networking brunch for undergraduate and graduate women in Chemistry, included our female faculty and lab managers as well.   read more about Women in Chemistry Brunch »

Dr. Ken Lyle was named the NC ACS 2015 Outreach Volunteer of the Year.  Dr. Lyle has directed Duke Chemistry's Outreach program since its inception in 2005. Recently, under Dr. Lyle's leadership, the Duke Chemistry Outreach program was also selected to receive this year’s Dean’s Leadership Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at Duke, in recognition not only of curricular contributions but also of the connections that Dr. Lyle and the Duke Chemistry Outreach program have built across campus and our local… read more about Dr. Ken Lyle Recognized for Outreach Accomplishments »

Chemistry professor David Beratan will receive the 2015 Charles H. Herty Medal, an annual award given by the Georgia Section of the American Chemical Society.  The Herty Medal publicly recognizes the work and services of chemists who have contributed significantly to their chosen field. All chemists who have resided in the southeastern United States in the past ten years are eligible for the award.  Professor Beratan will receive the award for his research on predictive structure-function relations of value in… read more about Beratan Awarded 2015 Herty Medal »

Al Crumbliss and Tim Kreulen (B.S. Chem, ’14) were selected to receive the 2015 ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry (DIC) Award for Undergraduate Research.  Tim gave a presentation on his work at the 2015 Spring ACS meeting in Denver, and he received a cash prize in addition to a plaque. As the student's preceptor, Al also received a plaque for permanent display.  It’s a well-deserved recognition that stems from thoughtful undergraduate student mentoring.   read more about Crumbliss and Kreulen receive 2015 ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Award »

The Department is delighted to announce that Dr. Kevin Welsher will join the Department as an Assistant Professor on July 1. Dr. Welsher is pushing the limits of 3D single-particle tracking technology to unmask the behavior of single molecules in vivo. Dr. Welsher's expertise is in the field of biophysical chemistry and nanomaterials; he will further expand the excellence and impact of our growing department.     read more about Welcome, Dr. Kevin Welsher! »

Patrick Charbonneau hosts seminar in Paris to relate his experience teaching an introductory-level science class on melding chemistry and cuisine at Duke University. Contemporary chefs such as Ferran Adrià, Joan Roca, and Heston Blumenthal have more than fame in common. They use soft matter chemistry and physics to create a gastronomy that challenges the traditional culinary experience. Techniques are not followed blindly, they are deconstructed, explained, and brought to new heights. View the seminar, hosted… read more about Charbonneau presents Soft matter and cooking: a pedagogical experience in Paris »

The award is being given to Professor Warren in recognition for his work on "the development of controlled laster pulses and nonlinear imaging techniques to enable applications ranging from clinical diagnostics to scientific analysis of Renaissance artwork.” The Mees Medal is given by the Optical Society of America only biennially to a recipient who exemplifies the thought that “optics transcends all boundaries,” both intellectual and international.      read more about Professor Warren is selected to receive the 2015 C.E.K. Mees Medal »

A Physics Today article describes new experiments that are testing predictions of Professor David Beratan's group on how infra-red radiation may be used to gate charge flow through molecules.  The recent experiment are testing Beratan's ideas of how vibrational excitation may be used to modulate electronic coupling "pathways" and their quantum mechanical interferences in molecules.  The writeup appears here  read more about Toward a Molecular "Double-slit" Experiment  »

A paper by Chetan Rupakheti and Aaron Virship, in collaboration with Professors Yang and Beratan, reports a new approach to develop property-biased molecular libraries that capture the diversity of vast "molecular space."  The paper was selected as an Editors' Choice in the /Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling/ and is available as a "just accepted" manuscript at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ci500749q. read more about New Approach Creates Property-Biased Molecular Libraries in silico »

The Widenhoefer group has  recently reported the synthesis and structure of the first gold carbene complex lacking heteroatom stabilization.  Unstabilzied gold carbene complexes have been widely invoked as reactive intermediates in gold- catalyzed transformations but have heretofore escaped direct detection and characterization.  This work, co-authored with graduate student Robert Harris, recently appeared in Angewandte Chemie.  The article may be found here, citing Harris, R. J.; Widehoefer, R… read more about Gold Carbene Complex Lacking Heteroatom Stabilization »

The journal Nature has named the article that Chengteh Lee, Weitao Yang and Robert G. Parr published in 1988 in Physical Review B one of the top 100 most-cited research publications of all time and all fields, entering the list at number 7. Of the publications in chemistry to make the list, the Lee-Yang-Parr article is the most cited one. read more about Duke Chemist’s Work Makes Top 10 »

Dr Agostino Migliore and collaborators are taking a major step forward in understanding the basic rules of charge transport through long polymer  wires and in their implementation in more complex electrical circuits. Their work recently appeared in Nature Nanotechnology and is a result of an international collaboration led by the experimental group of Prof. Danny Porath (from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and involving experimentalists and theorists from Israel, USA, and Europe. The experiments in… read more about Migliore and Collaborators re-ignite interest in DNA-based wires »

Congratulations to Al Crumbliss and Tim Kreulen (B.S. Chem, ’14), who have been selected to receive the 2015 ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry (DIC) Award for Undergraduate Research.  Tim will give a presentation on his work at the 2015 Spring ACS meeting, and he will receive a cash prize in addition to a plaque. As the student's preceptor, Al will also receive a plaque for permanent display.  It’s a well-deserved recognition that stems from thoughtful undergraduate student mentoring. read more about Crumbliss and Kreulen receive 2015 ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Award »

Alumni and friends of the Duke Chemistry Department were invited to attend the naming ceremony of the James F. Bonk Lecture Hall on Friday, October 3, in the French Science Center.  Many alumni, friends and University members joined the Department for a reception in front of the French Family Science Center and we were happy to celebrate the legacy of Jim Bonk! read more about Bonk Hall Naming- Friday, October 3 »

Members of the Franz lab joined forces with collaborators in the Duke University Medical School to show that a small molecule enhances antifungal activity by taking advantage of chemical processes induced by the immune system.  The molecule, nicknamed QBP, transforms from a non-toxic compound to a lethal agent upon interacting with reactive oxygen species and copper, both of which are released by activated immune cells. The toxic agent overrides the copper detoxification machinery in microbial pathogens in a way that… read more about Franz Group Develops a Strategy to Recruit Copper to Kill Pathogens »

The Fitzgerald Group recently described the development and application of two new experimental protocols that significantly expand the scope of  their SPROX methodology for the large-scale and high-throughput analysis of protein-ligand binding interactions on the proteomic scale. The work is reported in two recently published papers, one in Analytical Chemistry that is co-authored by graduate student researchers Yingrong Xu and Erin Strickland and the other in Molecular and Cellular Proteomics … read more about Fitzgerald Group Advances Protein-Ligand Binding Methodology »

The Crumbliss group in collaboration with microbiology and bioinformatics groups at the University of Minnesota and Chatham University have shown that the periplasmic iron transport protein FbpABp from the causative agent of whooping cough, Bordetella pertussis, selectively binds both unchelated Fe(III), and native and xeno Fe(III) siderophore complexes.  These data support the existence of a continuum between periplasmic binding proteins (PBP) and bacterial transferrins and represents a new paradigm for iron… read more about The Crumbliss Group Identifies a New Paradigm for Iron Transport In Gram Negative Bacteria »

A highly interdisciplinary team, lead by Profs. Therien (Chemistry) Yoshizumi (Health Physics) and Chino (Radiation Oncology), are incorporating nano-crystals into a nano-scintillator fiber optic dosimeter – a device that measures radiation doses in real-time and could prove to be of extraordinary value in the clinic. Please see https://www.dtmi.duke.edu/news-publications/from-idea-to-innovation for details. read more about Chemistry-BME-Health Physics Team land Coulter Award for Nano-crystal Based Radiation Dosimetry »

A new theory for charge transport indicates that multiple redox species in close contact can "find" states with nearly matched energy levels, permitting ballistic-like transport during the lifetime of the energy-matched states.  The theory predicts charge transfer rates that decay exponentially with distance, thus presenting a signature that is easily mistaken for quantum mechanical tunneling. This new mechanism may help to explain charge flow in damaged DNA and in bacterial redox-active nanowires,… read more about Beratan's group develops a theory for "flickering resonance" charge transfer »

The Department of Chemistry is pleased to congratulate the recipients of the 2014-2015 Fellowship Awards:  Joe Taylor Adams Du Zhang (Yang Group) James F. Bonk Yuqi Zhang (Beratan Group) Charles Bradsher Chaoren Liu (Beratan Group) Burroughs Wellcome Yusong Bai (Therien Group) Ting Jiang (Therien Group) Bumki Kim (Hong Group) Minhee Lee (Hong Group) Jerry Ortiz (Wang Group) Jacob Timmerman (Widenhoefer Group) Paul M. Gross Chen Li (… read more about 2014-2015 Fellowship Recipients »

Congratulations to Kathy Franz and Al Crumbliss, who have been recognized with Distinguished Chairs, effective July 1.  Professor Franz will hold the Alexander F. Hehmeyer Chair, a Bass Professorship given in recognition of her excellence in both research and teaching.  Professor Crumbliss will hold the title of University Distinguished Service Professor in recognition of his many years of faithful service to Duke.  Prof. Crumbliss' exceptional record of service to the University combined with his research… read more about Professors Franz and Crumbliss Honored »