Grantee News

Daniel Nocera: Process for Storing Solar Energy

Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT, has made a major discovery in energy storage that could lead to significantly more widespread adoption of solar energy.  Nocera states, "Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."  Chemical Explorers, a video series that highlights modern chemistry, examines the background and potential of this discovery.

Related links:

Chemical Explorers on the discovery of a new water-splitting catalyst by Dan Nocera and Matt Kanan. Available below or here.

 

 

Alice Y. Ting: New Probes of Protein-protein Interactions

Dr. Alice Y. Ting's group at MIT designs new probes that can be used to study most protein-protein interactions.  According to Dr. Ting, "We can use these probes to identify new protein partners or to characterize existing interactions. We can identify the signaling pathway the proteins are involved in and the cell cycle phase during which the interaction occurs."  A paper recently published online by the Journal of the American Chemical Society further describes useful applications in cell biology and proteomics.  This research has been partially funded by Dr. Ting's 2006 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar and a 2002 New Faculty awards.

Related links: MIT article, paper abstract, and Ting laboratory

 

2008 Special Grants: Enhancing Interest in Chemistry

Enhancing interest in chemistry is one of the goals of the Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences. Grants in 2008 towards that end are listed below:

The Museum of Science, Boston: $200,000 for the production of a multimedia exhibit that will address the growing human energy requirements and the chemistry of possible solutions, with an emphasis on solar.

Nobel Web Education Fund: $45,000 to develop simple explanations and illustrations for online educational materials that teach the history of organic chemistry through the pioneering work of Nobel Prize winners.

Science Television Workshop: $48,000 to support a "Science and Art" television project, that will feature the forensic chemistry of art, specifically the chemistry of paints, the identification of fraudulent works, and the restoration of paintings damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

American Institute of Physics: $60,000 to promote important discoveries in contemporary chemistry research with videos supplied to local television news.

West Texas A&M University: $33,000 to develop exhibits for the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum that highlight chemistry of regional relevance, such as the organic chemistry of petroleum, Native American medicine, and fabric chemistry.

University of Texas at El Paso: $15,000 for production and dissemination of a weekly radio program, "Science Studio," that conducts interviews with notable chemists.

Related links:

2008 Special Grant Program Awards http://www.dreyfus.org/announcements/CURR-SpecialGrant.pdf

 

Dr. H. Holden Thorp Named Chancellor of The University of North Carolina

H. Holden Thorp has been named the chancellor of The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, effective July 1, 2008. Dr. Thorp received a 1990 New Faculty Award and a 1995 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.

Related links:

http://www.unc.edu/chan/search/index.php

 

Molecules That Matter Traveling Exhibit

Molecules That Matter, an exhibit that highlights ten molecules that had a significant impact on the 20th century, from aspirin to buckminsterfullerene (a.k.a. buckyball), is currently on display at the Chemical Heritage Foundation's new museum in Philadelphia. First shown at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, the exhibit will run at the CHF through January 9, 2009 and subsequently travel to the College of Wooster, Baylor University, and Grinnell College. Partial support for this exhibit was provided by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation's Special Grant Program.

Related links:

Chemical Heritage Foundation museum: http://www.chemheritage.org/exhibits/exhibits.html

Molecules That Matter Web feature: http://tang.skidmore.edu/pac/mtm/

 

Forgotten Genius Receives 2007 AAAS Science Journalism Award

Llewellyn Smith, director, and Stephen Lyons, producer, of Forgotten Genius, NOVA's depiction of the life of pioneering African-American chemist Dr. Percy Julian, have been named as winners of the 2007 AAAS Science Journalism Award. The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation provided the initial funding for Forgotten Genius, which first aired in 2007 and attracted over 5.6 million viewers in its premiere week. Further efforts by WGBH, supported by the Dreyfus Foundation, bring segments of the program into science and social studies classrooms via the Teachers' Domain Web site.

Related links:

AAAS Science Journalism Awards: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/1115sja.shtml
NOVA's Web site about Percy Julian: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/julian/
Teachers' Domain: http://www.teachersdomain.org

 

Catalyst Project Hosts Inaugural Summer

Catalyst, a week-long summer enrichment program administered by the American Psychological Association and funded by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, pairs some of the brightest young high school students who are interested in chemistry with eminent faculty in the chemical sciences to embark upon longer-term research projects. As part of the program, students learn about how creativity inherent in scientific research also manifests itself in the arts. Inaugurated last summer at Williams College, Catalyst is planned to run for two additional summers, funded by the Dreyfus Foundation's Special Grant Program in the Chemical Sciences.

Related links:

Monitor on Psychology article: http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/betterliving.html

 

Dr. Theodore Cohen Is Four-time Senior Scientist Awardee

Dr. Theodore Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh, who has spent several decades developing new synthetic methods, is a four-time awardee of the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation's Senior Scientist Mentor Program. The program provides support for emeritus faculty to work with undergraduate students to conduct research in their labs. Dr. Cohen's award helped to fund the research of Justin Chalker, who was later selected as a 2006 Rhodes Scholar. Chalker states that Dr. Cohen "has contagious enthusiasm about organic chemistry. He motivated me to appreciate the beauty and practicality of what we do. He showed me that there is incredible aesthetic value and artistry in inventing and discovering new chemical reactions, making molecules that no one has ever made before, or making existing ones with unprecedented ease. ... [Cohen is] absolutely the best mentor that anybody could ever have."

Dr. Cohen joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 1956 and has been emeritus since 1999. Since 2001, Dr. Cohen's research lab has received support from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation's Senior Scientist Mentor Program, which provides $20,000 awards to faculty in the chemical sciences who maintain active research programs. The Senior Scientist Mentor Program has made over 100 awards since its inception in 2000.

Related links:

Theodore Cohen: http://www.chem.pitt.edu/p.php?pid=51&usr_id=78
Senior Scientist Mentor Program: http://www.dreyfus.org/awards/senior_scientist_mentor.shtml