NEWS

Dr. Najat Saliba and collaborators receive generous NCI Grant

Drs. Alan Shihadeh, Najat Saliba and Marwan El-Sabban

Dr. Najat Saliba (Chemistry) and two other AUB Professors, Dr. Alan Shihadeh (Mechanical Engineering, team leader) and Dr. Marwan El-Sabban (Human Morphology) were awarded a $1.1 million grant from the US National Cancer Institute. This is part of a joint American University of Beirut-Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) research award to study human exposure to toxicants as a result of nargileh (water pipe) smoking. The project is led by Professors Alan Shihadeh at AUB and Thomas Eissenberg at VCU. The total award mounts up to $2.8 million. Congratulations!
Abstract AUB Bulletin Lebanese Media

Dr. Kamal Bouhadir receives Fulbright Award

Dr. Kamal Bouhadir received a Fulbright Award for a research leave during the second semester 2007-2008. He is spending the spring semester at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University.

Dr. Bouhadir will investigate the template-directed cyclopolymerization of diallylaminoethyl-substituted nucleic bases. His research group has recently synthesized a number of diallylamine derivatives coupled to nucleic bases. The free-radical cyclopolymerization of these derivatives produced novel synthetic homopolymers with structural resemblance to natural oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs). However, the polymerization conditions were pertinent to high monomer concentrations and therefore, limited in scope and applications. Dr. Bouhadir is currently investigating the appropriate reaction conditions that could potentially lead to an efficient and rapid cyclopolymerization of these molecules at low monomer concentrations via molecular recognition of adenine-thymine and cytosine-guanine through multiple hydrogen bonds.

The hypothesis underlying this research project is that the assembly of the N,N-diallylaminoethyl derivatives onto surface templates that are coated with natural (or synthetic) ODNs should concentrate the monomers on the surface and align the double bonds, thus facilitating the free-radical cyclopolymerization reaction. As a result, template-directed cyclopolymerization is expected to occur efficiently on these surfaces to form complementary oligomers in high yields.

The successful completion of this project could potentially lend itself to the rapid, economical and efficient synthesis of robust complementary ODN analogs of specific genes. Congratulations!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEMINAR PROGRAM

2008-2009

Seminar: "H-Bonding of Polynucleotides in Polyelectrolyte Multilayers and in Solution", by Miss Marie-Zabel Markarian, Ph.D. candidate, Florida State University. On Wednesday December 17, 2008; at 4:00 pm. Room 101 Chemistry. All are welcome.

Seminar: "Reactivity of Gem-Iodoacetyl-Perfluoro-Alkylethane: Novel Methodology for the Synthesis of Perfluoroalkyl and Trifluoromethyl-Heterocyclic Compounds", by Dr. Salem El-Kharrat, post-doctoral fellow, University of Montpellier. On Wednesday October 8, 2008; at 4:00 pm. Room 101 Chemistry. All are welcome.

NEWS

Dr. Bilal Kaafarani receives American Chemical Society (ACS) grant

Dr. Bilal R. Kaafarani received a $65,000 grant from the Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) of the American Chemical Society (ACS), funding the project entitled "Design and Synthesis of Novel Pyrene Discotics and Their Investigation in Organic Photovoltaic Cells". This project is funded for the next three years (Jan 1, 2008 - Aug 31, 2011). Congratulations!

New faculty member joins Chemistry

Dr. Digamabara Patra joined the Chemistry Department as a new assistant professor. Born in Gambhariguda, Kalahandi, Orissa, India, he received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and M.Phil. in
Chemistry from Sambalpur University, Orissa, India. He then obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India in 2001. He joined the University of Basel, Switzerland as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2001. Then he received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2002 and moved to Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany. In 2003, he visited the "Katholiekie" University of Leuven, Belgium in a Europe Research Fellowship. Afterwards, he joined the National Institute of Natural Sciences (Okazaki), followed by Waseda University (Tokyo) in Japan as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences from 2004 to 2006. He worked as a visiting lecturer in the Department of Physics, Waseda University Tokyo from 2006 to 2007. His research interest is in Physical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy where he gives emphasis on fluorescence spectroscopy, imaging, probing, and single molecule studies.