Current students Nick (3rd year), Claire (3rd year) and Krista (2nd year), along with Professor Bailey, virtually presented their work at Pittcon’s 2021 meeting. While the sights, sounds and tastes of NOLA were surely missed, there was no shortage of oral presentations, poster sessions, and fun excursions (via zoom) to fill up the week.
This week, in a virtual format, Cole defended his thesis titled “Clinical Diagnostics for Immune Response Assessment Through Multiplexed Biosensor Immunoassays In At-Risk Populations."
In March, Cole will continue his work with photonic-based diagnostics as a research scientist at SiPhox in Burlington, Massachusetts .
Congratulations to Dr. Chapman from all of us in the Bailey Lab!!
On Friday, Sara defended her thesis titled “Optimization of Nanodisc Array Generation on Silicon Photonic Microring Resonators for Lipid-Protein and Membrane Protein-Protein Interaction Characterization."
Next month, Sara will begin her career as a scientist at NGM Biopharmaceuticals in San Francisco, California.
Congratulations to Dr. Medfisch from all of us in the Bailey Lab!
In the Bailey Lab’s first virtual defense, Dr. Emily Mordan defended her thesis titled “Addressing Common HPLC Detector Challenges using Silicon Photonic Microring Resonators with Applications for Polymer Separations and More."
This January, she will begin her career at Dow, as a Senior Research Specialist in Analytical R&D!
Congratulations to Emily from all of us in the Bailey Lab!
Blood coagulation is regulated through protein-protein and protein-lipid interactions that occur at the sub-endothelium following vascular damage. Soluble clotting proteins bind to membrane components in a phosphatidylserine (PS) dependent manner to assemble multi-protein complexes that regulate clot formation; however, PS is of limited abundance physiologically. In this manuscript, we investigate synergy between PS and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE)-a lipid of much higher abundance naturally. Using a label-free, silicon photonic technology, we constructed arrays of Nanodiscs having variable lipid composition and probed the binding interactions of seven different clotting factors with GLA domains that have never been studied in tandem experiments before. The factors studied were prothrombin, activated factor VII, factor IX, factor X, activated protein C, protein S, and protein Z. Equilibrium dissociation constants (Kd) for each coagulation factor binding to Nanodiscs with unique compositions of PE and PS were determined. While all factors showed greater binding affinities in the presence of PS and PE, the most dramatic improvements in binding were observed when PS quantities were lowest. This demonstrates that synergy is effective in promoting coagulation factor binding under physiological lipid compositions, as opposed to the artificially high PS content probed in most in vitro activity studies.
Read the full article here!
Polymer brushes are found in biomedical and industrial technologies, where they exhibit functionalities considerably dependent on polymer brush–solvent–analyte interactions. It remains a difficult challenge to quickly analyze solvent-swollen polymer brushes, both at the solvent–polymer brush interface and in the brush interior, as well as to monitor the kinetics of interaction of solvent-swollen brushes with key analytes. Here, we demonstrate the novel use of silicon photonic microring resonators to characterize in situ swollen polymer brush–analyte interactions. By monitoring resonant wavelength shifts, we find that brush–solvent–analyte interaction parameters can be extracted from a single set of data or from successive analyte introductions using a single brush-coated sensor. The partition coefficient of three industrially relevant plasticizers into hydrophobic and hydrophilic brushes was determined and found to be in agreement with known solubility trends. We found that the diffusion coefficient of the plasticizer into the brush decreases as brush thickness increases, supporting a model of a dense inner brush layer and diffuse outer layer. pKa’s of pH-sensitive brushes were determined on the microring resonator platform; upon increasing the dry brush thickness, the pKa for poly(2-dimethylamino ethyl methacrylate) decreased from 8.5 to approach the bulk material pKa of 7.3 and showed dependence on the presence and concentration of salt. These proof-of-concept experiments show how the surface-sensitive nature of the microring resonator detection platform provides valuable information about the interaction of the polymer brushes with the solvents and analytes, not easily accessed by other techniques.
The 2020 Karle Symposium was held on July 31st. While in a virtual format this year, current students, alumni, faculty and outside researchers were still given the opportunity to learn about the novel research occurring in the chemistry labs here at UM. The Karle symposium is a yearly event named for Isabella and Jerome Karle, distinguished graduates of our department, who worked together to advance X-ray crystallography methods. Jerome Karle won the Nobel Prize in 1985 for their contribution to the field.
The Bailey lab was represented at the symposium in multiple formats. Rising third year, Nick Glenn, kicked off the student talks with his presentation titled: “Development of a Microfluidic Droptode for the Detection of Macromolecular Heparin”. Later in the day, rising third year, Claire Cook, presented in the analytical cluster’s poster session with a poster titled “Developing microfluidic tools to assess epigenetic heterogeneity among single cells”. Claire received a “Student Poster Presentation Award” sponsored by Dow for her work! Rising fourth year, Gloria Diaz, served on the symposium’s organizing committee team as a chair-elect, meaning she is set to chair the event with another graduate student in 2021.
The virtual event was filled with student talks, poster sessions, a PPG plenary lecture, and a Dow plenary lecture that highlighted collaborations with labs here in the chemistry department. The day concluded with the keynote lecture by Dr. Gabe Kwong of Georgia Tech and Emory School of Medicine titled “Chemical Approaches to Synthetic Immunity”. Great work to all of those involved in the symposium, especially to our lab-mates involved, and congratulations to Claire on her poster award!
MBSTP is a National Institute of Health (NIH) / National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) funding training program here at the University of Michigan. This program aims to be an exciting blend of chemistry, engineering, mathematics, physics, and biological sciences, with an emphasis on biomedical microfluidics. MBSTP also sponsors public programs, such as seminars and a yearly symposium.
Nick applied to MBSTP due to his interest in developing microfluidic technologies for point of care analysis in clinical settings. He is excited to be provided with a network of health professionals, engineers, and scientists within the MBSTP while further developing his understanding of microfluidic technologies.
We look forward to watching Nick excel in this program! Congrats from all!
Click here for more information on the MBSTP!
RELATE (Researchers Expanding Lay-Audience Teaching and Engagement) is a student run workshop that equips researchers of all levels with skills to effectively communicate science to audiences of various backgrounds. STEM research can be used in a wide variety of fields, such as public policy and marketing strategies, meaning that STEM researchers must be able to convey their bench-side discoveries to an audience with diverse backgrounds. By training researchers in communication skills, RELATE hopes to improve scientific communication using a multitude of perspectives. The multi-week summer workshop concludes with a community engagement event where the STEM researchers demonstrate their new skills.
Claire applied for this program because of her interest in science communication through teaching and writing. She looks forward to developing her skills to better connect with those not in a STEM field. She wants to foster an excitement about science in individuals who previously found it difficult to ‘relate’ to research topics!
Congratulations again to Claire, we can’t wait to hear about all that you learn!
RELATE was co-founded in 2013 by University of Michigan Neuroscience graduate students and for more information on this program, click here!
CDIP works to increase faculty needed to teach the diverse students of the CSU [California State Universities] by preparing doctoral students for faculty positions. This is the largest program of its kind in the US and provides financial support, mentorship and professional development. The California State Universities consist of 23 campuses and is the largest university system in the US. It is also the greatest producer of degrees with 46% of the state’s bachelor’s degrees and 32% of the state’s master’s degrees.
Gloria is an alumna of Cal State San Marcos, where she majored in chemistry prior to attending the University of Michigan.
Way to go Gloria, we are all proud of your hard work!
Click here for more information about the program!
