College of the Pacific

Research

The department offers a variety of exciting and future-oriented research topics, stretching from organic synthesis, biochemistry, theoretical chemistry, to physical chemistry and spectroscopy. Graduate students are required to engage in research, but we also encourage Undergraduates to get involved. Between 2000 and 2008, department faculty published over 80 research papers in high-quality peer-refereed journals, often co-authored with undergraduate and/or graduate student researchers. In the same time period, faculty and students attended numerous national and international conferences and presented over 50 papers.

Current grants (close to $2,000,000) support this research and have funded

• the extremely well-equipped mass spectrometry facility(including a DART AccuTOF mass spectrometer)
• the magnetic resonance facility (600 MHz NMR instrument)
• the new SGI computer cluster
• Standard instrumentation

What to expect (Chemistry Graduate Students)

Graduate students admitted to the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry Program earn salary as teaching assistants in Undegraduate laboratories. They are required to carry out research, and they receive up to 9 units tuition remission per semester.

Despite its small size, the Department of Chemistry mentors 22 Graduate students and several post-doctoral fellows.

What to expect (Chemistry/Biochemistry Undergraduate Students)

Undergraduate students have the opportunity to join research groups in the department to fulfill the requirements of chemistry/biochemistry electives, but also in form of summer internships. In the research groups, they will work alongside Graduate students and the faculty supervisor on current projects. They either receive units for their work or (upon availability of funds and qualification) salary as research associates.

Current research topics for Graduate students include (but are not limited to):

Synthesis of molecular switches (V. V. Samoshin)

Total synthesis of small-molecule inhibitors of carbohydrate-processing enzymes. Synthesis and modification of carbohydrate mimics (V. V. Samoshin, A. H. Franz, P. H. Gross).

Amino acid sequence elucidation of spider silk proteins (P. R. Jones, O. D. Sparkman).

Energy transfer in fluorescent dyes (S. Rodriguez).

Environmental studies of toxin accumulation in plastics in the Pacific ocean (P. R. Jones)

Molecular Dynamics simulations of amphiphiles at walls and gas-phase conformation of helical peptides.
Gas-phase proton transfer reactions, thermochemical properties of helical peptides, peptide fragmentation mechanisms, protein-protein interactions and peptide-lipid bilayer interactions (M. McCallum, J. Ren)

Proteomic analysis of MEL cell differentiation (P. R. Jones)

Phosphocrypts and -podands, Transitionmetal macrocycles (L. O. Spreer)

Theoretical and Computational Chemistry; software development, solution of current problems in chemistry, biochemistry, medicinal chemistry, nanotechnology by computer simulations; computer assisted drug design, Elucidation of Reaction Mechanism with the Unified Reaction Valley Approach: Toward the Control of Chemical Reactions (NSF Grant, CHE 071893) (E. Kraka, D. Cremer)

Nucleotide analogs and DNA repair inhibitors (L. Xue)

Gas-Phase Ion Chemistry (PEPICO) (B. Sztaray)

Computational methods for protein folding (J. Tsai)

Events

Several undergraduate students from the department participated with research posters and talks in the 21st Annual Northern California ACS Undergraduate Research Symposium, Santa Clara University, May 02, 2009.

Tuesday Seminar Series

The Tuesday seminars are intended to bring internationally recognized colleagues to the department, to keep faculty as well as undergraduate and graduate students informed about latest developments in the field, to establish a network of contacts, and to develop collaborations.

Selected Chemistry seminars:

• Dr. Scott Russell, University of California, Stanislaus; "Rapid Detection and Identification of Microorganisms Using Mass Spectrometry" (April 28, 2009)
• Dr. Mattanjah S. de Vries, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California,  Santa Barbara; "History Detectives: Shedding Light on the Origin of Life and on Archaeology by Gas Phase Laser Spectroscopy" (April 14, 2009)
• Dr. O. David Sparkman, Chemistry Department, University of the Pacific; "What's New in Mass Spectrometry from PittCon 2009" (April 7, 2009)
• Dr. Jacqueline Houston, California State University, Sacramento; "Ligand Exchange from μ3-Oxo Transition Metal Clusters: Connecting Molecular Structure to Kinetic Reactivity using NMR" (March 24, 2009)
• Dr. William F. Carroll, Jr., ACS President (2005); "From Garbage to Stuff: How We Recycle Plastics" (March 3, 2009)
• Courtney Hodges, University of California, Berkeley; "What Happens When Pol II Encounters a Nucleosome?" (March 3, 2009)
• Andras Boedi, Molecular Dynamics Group, Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland; "Internal Energy Selection in Gas Phase Ions: Dissociation Mechanisms, Trends, and Accurate Energetics" (February 24, 2009)
• Phillip Chou, Melissa Mayo, and Mike Cleary, E&J Gallo Winery; "Applying Chemistry to Decisions in Grape Harvesting and Winemaking" (February 17, 2009)
• Dr. Christian Melander, Department of Chemistry, North Carolina State University, "Small Molecule Control of Bacterial Behavior" (February 10, 2009)
• Dr. Andy Li Wang, University of California, Merced; "Tick-tock of a Biological Clock: The Biochemistry of Telling Time" (February 3, 2009)
• Dr. Arnold Falick, University of California, Berkeley; "Identification of Proteins via MS/MS" (January 27, 2009)
• Dr. Bill von Meyer, retired Chairman of Fairview Industries, Inc. in Pendleton, South Carolina; "Bridges to the Future in Bio-Pathology and Chemistry" (January 22, 2009)
• Professor Emeritus Jack T. Watson, Departments of Biochemistry and Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing; "Interleafing Chemistry with Mass Spectrometry to Map the Disulfide Structure of Proteins" (January 13, 2009) 

Seminar archive: spring 2007, fall 2007, spring 2008, fall 2008