By: Taylor Caron

Professor Yongku Cho of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department has received a Best of BIOT (biochemical technology) award for his presentation at the American Chemical Society’s 2016 National Meeting.

 

His presentation was entitled “Engineering Antibody Specificity Through Multi-Dimensional High-Throughput Screens,” and is related to his research on creating a more effective antibody to potentially detect Alzheimer’s disease for which he has received a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Professor Cho’s work involves developing an antibody which will be more effective at binding to the desired target. More precisely, Professor Cho and his lab are developing an antibody which will be more specific in targeting a particular modification that occurs on the target protein known as the Tau protein. He said that his presentation at ACS was focused on their new technology that enables the precise measurement of the antibody’s ability to specifically bind to the desire target.

 

“The BIOT Award had to do with describing the technology of quantifying antibody specificity,” he said. “Many researchers have focused on what is called affinity, which has to do with an antibody’s strength of attracting other proteins, but specificity is the degree to which an antibody can isolate a single target. Both of these properties are equally important to make a good quality antibody.”

 

Professor Cho presented a webinar (an online seminar http://www.acsbiot.org/index.php/2016-best-biot/) in September on this subject on behalf of the ACS. He and his research team are currently applying this knowledge to develop a highly specific and reactive antibody.

 

By: Adam M. Rainear

The Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department is pleased to announce Jennifer Pascal as an Assistant-Professor in Residence, who will mainly have a teaching emphasis for the department.

Joining UConn after spending three years teaching at her alma mater, Tennessee Technological University (TTU), Dr. Pascal attributes her passion for teaching and education as one of the main reasons for joining UConn.

“The school I was at – I thought – had a nice balance between research and teaching,” she said. “But, it turns out they’re really pushing research.  [And] I really wanted to focus on teaching and engineering education.”

With her new role, Dr. Pascal is most looking forward to improving her classes and refining her teaching abilities.

“Just actually getting to focus on your classes, and try to make them good,” she said.  “Trying new things, because you have time now to prepare and do some different activities and stuff like that.  And then, getting to go to some of the workshops at CETL, and interacting with some of the folks over there.  It’s been exciting, those were the meetings I always liked going to.”

In her first semester here in Storrs, Dr. Pascal co-taught Introduction to Chemical Engineering (CHEG 2103), in addition to Unit Operations and Process Simulation (CHEG 4142). In the upcoming spring semester, she will teach two advanced transport special topics courses and will co-teach the chemical engineering senior laboratory.

Dr. Pascal received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from TTU in 2011, researching Modeling Electrokinetic-based Bioseparations and Learning Transport Phenomena for her dissertation.  From there, she went on to begin her career at the University of New Mexico on a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship, where she could devote a portion of her fellowship to teaching at a minority serving institution in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Though she doesn’t have specific research requirements, moving forward Dr. Pascal hopes to continue engaging in research with her new colleagues.

“I’m interested in engineering education research, so I’m trying to get some things going with that and build that up. Before I did mathematical modeling of bio-transport systems, so I’m open.”

Dr. Pascal denotes her father, a former television weatherman in Tennessee, for her passion of all-things science when she was younger.

“I grew up with all this science stuff around – he’s a big nerd – so, weather stations in our house and experiments all the time,” Pascal noted.  “He got me a microscope when I was five – and growing up around that – I’m sure influenced me.”

 

 

It is with great sadness that we say farewell to our beloved friend and colleague Prof. Emeritus G. Michael Howard.  Prof. Howard was a Professor and former Department Head of Chemical Engineering, as well as former Associate Dean for the School of Engineering during his tenure here at UConn (1961-97).  He will be greatly missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Taylor Caron

 

Professor Yongku Cho of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department has received a research grant from the National Institute of Health, a primary Federal funding source, this past August. His research centers on engineering an antibody that could potentially elucidate the mechanism of neurotoxicity in Alzheimer’s disease.

 

The project, which is being led by Professor Cho, began in September with his graduate student Dan Li, and is focusing on what is known as the Tau protein. The Tau protein exists in brain tissue and is thought to result in neurodegeneration when improperly modified. According to Professor Cho, antibodies are a valuable tool in Alzheimer’s research because they are capable of recognizing these modifications, such as phosphorylation and acetylation of the Tau. However, a critical issue with many antibodies is that they bind unmodified Tau and proteins other than the desired target. This process is called cross-reactivity and can mislead research in Alzheimer’s disease. The focus of Professor Cho and his lab is to develop an antibody which will be more accurate in targeting the defective Tau alone.

 

“One study estimated that half of the antibodies currently sold on the market do not work as intended. A primary reason for this is cross-reactivity,” Professor Cho said.

Professor Cho’s project is entitled Early Detection of Tau Acetylation Using Ultra-High Affinity Antibodies.  There are two primary functions to determine an antibody’s effectiveness: affinity and specificity. Affinity refers to the strength with which an antibody attracts other proteins, and specificity refers to an antibody’s ability so single out an individual protein like the Tau, without cross-reactivity. Professor Cho said much attention has been placed on affinity to the neglect of specificity, but that his project will focus on both.

“The proposal is about affinity and specificity, but I believe it is essential to develop a high-quality antibody that can both isolate the Tau and sufficiently attract it. Affinity and specificity go hand in hand,” he said.

 

Professor Cho spoke about what the Tau looks like under a harmful modification called acetylation, and how the grant from NIH will help him and his team detect it with high sensitivity, allowing to better elucidate its effect on Alzheimer’s disease.

 

“The Tau protein forms a tangle inside the brain that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease,” Professor Cho said. “There are many forms or modifications of the protein, and one is known as acetylation which we believe may be the cause of the neurotoxicity.”

 

Professor Cho and his lab will be working with Dr. Benjamin Wolozin from Boston University to test their antibodies on human tissue samples. He is hopeful that this antibody could someday be used in detecting the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, and enable the development of therapeutics.

By: Taylor Caron

The Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (ChEGSA) hosted a Halloween party for graduate students and CBE faculty on the Friday before Halloween.

 

The room in Engineering II was filled with video games, large pizzas, and tabletops games as CBE members mingled with some decked out in Halloween costumes.

 

Travis Omasta, a graduate student who organized the event, said the aim was to allow for faculty and students to meet and talk with another, which is often the catalyst for both friendship and networking.

 

“The main goal of many of our events, the Halloween party included, is to build comradery and community within the CBE graduates.” Omasta said. “This particular event was held on Friday afternoon during typical work hours so it is easy for students and faculty to come by and socialize.”

 

Introductions and lively conversation was abundant throughout the event. According to Omasta, this is the kind of function ChEGSA regularly hopes to provide to the department, and there are many more events to come.

 

“We consider this event successful as we have all of our events this year, with our primary focus of getting more students involved, especially the ones that don’t know as many people around campus,” he said. “ChEGSA also hosts enriching events such as rapid fire presentations competitions, seminars on job and real work skills, and practices for conference presentations.”

By: Taylor Caron

UConn Chemical Engineering graduate student Jian Ren has received two national awards for her innovative research on water purification. The North American Membrane Society (NAMS) awarded her a Student Fellowship Award this past May, and she will receive a Graduate Student Research Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE) at the annual meeting this upcoming November.

Both awards are highly selective as the NAMS Fellowship is given to only three students annually, and the AIChE Research Award to only six or eight. Ren said she was very honored to receive the awards, especially the NAMS Fellowship.

“The NAMS Student Fellowship is the highest student award to receive from NAMS, so I am really honored and grateful to receive this recognition in the field of membrane science and technology,” she said. “This would not be possible without the continuous support from my advisor and colleagues.”

Ren has been working with Professor Jeffrey McCutcheon on an energy efficient and cost effective method of purifying water. Conventionally, a process called reverse osmosis is used in seawater desalination and wastewater treatment. Ren’s work uses a process called forward osmosis which utilizes natural osmotic tendency at a lower cost to separate water from contaminants. Her research focuses on developing innovative hollow fiber membranes (HFM) for this process. The HFM is a semi-permeable membrane which requires much less energy than the standard membrane used in reverse osmosis.

These membranes have a straw-like shape and can achieve a high packing density, Ren said. Not only is it more effective while enabling small footprint system, but it is easier to manufacture at a large scale

“The HFM is also self-supported, which makes it easy to prototype in academic labs and manufacture in industry,” she said.

Part of what makes Ren’s research so impressive is that she built her own hollow fiber spinning system at UConn from scratch.

“Professor McCutcheon encouraged me to build the system, and I accepted because I like to challenge myself. Unless you challenge yourself you never know you had such potential,” Ren said.