Selected Faculty Updates and Publications for 2024
Michael Best, professor and associate head of undergraduate education, recently published “Nuclear phosphoinositide signaling promotes YAP/TAZ-TEAD transcriptional activity in breast cancer” in The EMBO Journal. Best and then-postdoctoral researcher Jinchao Lou worked with a team including researchers from the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases and the Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. Both institutions are part of the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Assistant Professor Joshua Baccile’s publication “Biological Demands and Toxicity of Isoprenoid Precursors in Bacillus Subtilis Through Cell-Permeant Analogs of Isopentenyl Pyrophosphate and Dimethylallyl Pyrophosphate” was featured on the cover of ChemBioChem. Graduate students Zack Hulsey and Dillon McBee, and undergraduate student Makayla Hedges were co-authors of this publication.
Professor Shawn Campagna’s research group has had a busy year. Seven members have delivered 11 talks or poster presentations at conferences and events, including both the spring and fall meetings of the American Chemical Society, the 3rd Annual Biomembranes Symposium, and the American Society for Mass Spectrometry national meeting.
Assistant Professor Yingwen Cheng was recently awarded a grant by the Department of Energy for a project entitled High Energy and Cycling Stable All-Weather Aqueous Zn Batteries. Cheng plans to develop alkaline-manganese dioxide batteries using minerals with robust supply chains as an alternative to lithium-ion batteries. He has also been named a StART awardee, a program managed by the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute to support collaborations between UT and ORNL researchers.
Associate Professor Ampofo Darko’s group recently published “Chromogenic Detection of the Organophosphorus Nerve Agent Simulant DCP Mediated by Rhodium(II,II) Paddlewheel Complexes” in ACS Sensors. Graduate students Eric Fussell, Ernest Bennin, and Sarah Hirschbeck were co-authors on the publication. At the department’s 2024 Honor’s Day, Darko group member Bukola Ogunyemi was given an Outstanding PhD Candidate Award.
Assistant Professor Thanh Do’s group published “The Rise and Fall of Adenine Clusters in the Gas Phase: A Glimpse into Crystal Growth and Nucleation” in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. The article was featured on the publication’s cover and included graduate students Damilola Oluwatoba and Happy Safoah as co-authors.
Assistant Professor Fred Heberle recently published “Neutron spin echo shows pHLIP is capable of retarding membrane thickness fluctuations” in Biomchimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) Biomembranes. The team on this project included researchers from the UT departments of chemistry, physics and astronomy, and biochemical, cellular, and molecular biology. This multidisciplinary group also included ORNL researchers working in the Labs and Soft Matter Group of the Neutron Scattering Division, the Computational Science and Engineering Division, and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences.
The research group of Professor David Jenkins has had an exciting year. Three graduate students successfully defended their dissertations in one semester. Two students published first-author papers, and several group members presented at conferences, including the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society and the 51st Annual National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers Meeting. Jenkins’ previous publication in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces was featured in Advances in Engineering.
In just one semester at UT, Assistant Professor Ziying (Nancy) Lei has hit the ground running. Lei has been collecting samples and training graduate students on measuring urban air quality across UT campus, and was recently granted a research permit ahead of a developing collaboration with the National Park Service Research Team at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She will also be teaching a new Environmental Chemistry class in spring 2025.
Professor Janice Musfeldt’s work “Structural phase purification of bulk Hfo2:Y through pressure cycling” was published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the world’s most cited and comprehensive multidisciplinary journals. She also began a new lecture series featuring women researchers, the first of which was held on the 2024 UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science and featured Karin Rabe, Board of Governors Professor of Physics at Rutgers University.
Associate Professor Sharani Roy published “Semiempirical molecular-orbital calculations of dissociation energies of small molecules containing light elements” in Molecular Physics. Graduate students Matthew Curry, Dakota Landrie, and Adam Wunschel were co-authors on the publication. At this year’s Honor’s Day event, Landrie was awarded the inaugural Dr. Robert A. and Phyllis F.J. Yokley Endowed Fellowship.
Professor Bin Zhao recently published “Effect of Grafting Density on the Crystallization Behavior of Molecular Bottlebrushes” in Macromolecules. This paper continues Zhao’s work with bottlebrush polymers and was co-authored by former graduate students Ethan Kent and Michael Kelly.