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We are still in the process of selecting presenters for the spring semester and more seminars will be added to the schedule. *Unless otherwise specified, the seminars listed below will be held in the Highland Campus Accelerator in CR-1101 from 6:00PM-7:30PM on the day listed. Refreshments will be provided. Please continue to visit this page for updates.

 

Seminar Schedule:

Thursday, February 16th: Professor Hang Ren | UT Austin | Department of Chemistry

Thursday, March 9th: Professor Huiliang (Evan) Wang | UT Austin | Cellular and Biomolecular Engineering

 

Wednesday, March 22nd: Professor Jonathan Sessler | UT Austin | Department of Chemistry

 

Wednesday, April 5th: Professor Christy Landes | Rice University | Department of Chemistry

(*From 2:00-3:30PM, via Zoom online)

Thursday, April 20th: Professor Kami Hull | UT Austin | Department of Chemistry

Refreshments are provided for each seminar by courtesy of the ACC Chemistry Society.

ACC Chemistry Society

Spring 2023 - CREATE Seminar Series

Arrival at HLC

Parking for CREATE seminars is available in the visitor parking lot near the corner of Highland Mall Blvd and Jonathan Dr.

Please use the East Entrance of Building 1000 and proceed down the Social Staircase. The Accelerator will be on the right.

Please click the maps to expand them.

For more info, please contact CREATE@cm.utexas.edu

Past Seminars

"From Piedmont Virginia Community College to the Landes Group at Rice"

 

Abstract: The Landes Group is comprised of chemists, applied physicists, and engineers who develop next- generation tools to image dynamics at soft interfaces at the limit of a single event. Her group devises new methods and models for controlling macroscale processes such as protein separations and photocatalysis using this super-resolved chemical knowledge. The group also uses advanced signal and image processing methods to improve accuracy and precision in low-signal measurements. Christy’s outreach activities emphasize the importance of mathematics and computer programming in our increasingly data-driven world. Her goal for the community is to underscore our common values despite the expanding need to broaden and redefine our respective specializations.

 

Please visit the Landes Research Group to learn more about Dr. Christy Landes and her research.

Wednesday, March 22nd from 6:00-7:30

Professor Jonathan L Sessler | Professor | Biomedical Engineering

"Texas-Inspired Drug Discovery Efforts"

This lecture will present the development of expanded porphyrins as potential drug leads. The presentation will begin with a personal story of a 3x cancer survivor and how with the assistance of great coworkers and collaborators an effort has been made to fight back against this disease by studying the chemistry and anti-cancer biology of gadolinium(III) texaphyrins.

 

Texaphyrins were the first of the so-called expanded porphyrins--larger analogues of heme pigments--to stabilize a 1:1 complex with a metal cation. Subsequently, and continuing as a focus today, an effort has been made in our laboratories and those of

many others to create additional expanded porphyrins. Hundreds

are now known. Several from our laboratory have proved useful at

stabilizing actinide cation complexes.

 

Recently, efforts have been made to create so-called immunogenic

cell death promoters designed to prevent cancer recurrence based

on redox-active gold(I) carbenes. An introduction to this new

research direction will be included in this lecture, as well new work

involving the development of expanded porphyrins and ExJade as

ligands for the lanthanides and actinides.

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Thursday, March 9th from 6:00-7:30

Professor Huiliang (Evan) Wang | Assistant Professor | Biomedical Engineering

"Ultrasound triggered liposome light source for noninvasive optogenetics"

Optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience understanding by allowing spatiotemporal control over cell-type specific neurons in neural circuits. However, visible light cannot be directly delivered to deep brain tissue, due to the severe dissipation and scattering of photons. As a result, invasive craniotomy is usually required to implant optical fibers in the brain for in vivo optogenetic stimulation, resulting in permanent damage and chronic gliosis in brain tissue. To achieve non-invasive optogenetics with high temporal resolution and excellent biocompatibility, we have developed focused ultrasound triggered nanoscopic light sources (Lipo@IR780/L012) for deep brain photon delivery. Synchronized and stable blue light emission was generated under FUS irradiation

due to the activation of chemiluminescent L012 via nearby

reactive oxygen species generated by IR780. In vitro tests

revealed that Lipo@IR780/L012 could be triggered by FUS

for light emission at different frequencies and hence

activate opsin-expressing spiking HEK cells under the FUS

irradiation. In vivo optogenetic stimulation further

demonstrated that motor cortex neurons could be

noninvasively and reversibly activated under the repetitive

FUS stimulation after i.v. injection of lipid nanoparticles to

achieve limb motions control.

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Thursday, February 16th from 6:00-7:30

Professor Hang Ren | Assistant Professor | Department of Chemistry

 

"Revealing the heterogeneity in metal dissolution reaction via colocalized electrochemical and structural imaging"
 

Electrochemical metal dissolution reactions are fundamentally important in battery and corrosion processes. Their kinetics is highly dependent on surface structures and the presence of passive films. In this talk, I will present the study on the initiation of metal dissolution reactions on Ag and Ni, representing model systems for oxide-free and oxide-covered metals, respectively. The local dissolution kinetics is voltammetrically mapped via scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM). Co-localized characterization of crystal orientation reveals slower dissolution on {111} close-packed

planes. The local dissolution kinetics on grain boundaries

can also be directly measured, which shows a faster

dissolution rate on some but not all grain boundaries. The

dependence of passive film breakdown on the thickness of

the passive film is also revealed, which is obtained from

colocalized TOF-SIMS mapping. We demonstrate that

correlative electrochemical and structural imaging are

powerful tools for studying heterogeneity at complex

electrochemical interfaces.

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