Postdoctoral scholar Dr. Dmytro Havrylyuk received an award for the poster “Ru(II) CYP1B1 Inhibitor Prodrugs with Enhanced Potency” at the 2018 Metals in Medicine, Gordon Research Conference. The project was performed in collaboration with Kimberly Stevens and Catherine A. Denning in the laboratories of Dr. David K. Heidary and Prof. Edith C. Glazer
Congratulations to Alysia Kohlbrand who received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship from UK’s Chellgren Center. This award will support Alysia to work with Drs. Edith (Phoebe) Glazer and David Heidary in the Chemistry Department, to study the effects of small molecule inhibitors on Nitric Oxide Synthase. These enzymes are used in the body to catalyze the production of nitric oxide (NO), an important signaling molecule which plays a central role in human biology.
Professor Edith "Phoebe" Glazer was selected to serve on the advisory board for Chemical Society Reviews (Chem. Soc. Rev.). This prestigious publication, which produces 24 issues per year and boasts an Impact Factor of 34, is the flagship review journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and - from the RSC's website - publishes "high-impact, succinct and reader-friendly articles at the forefront of the chemical sciences".
The Small-Molecule X-Ray Crystallography Facility in the Department of Chemistry has been awarded a prestigious and highly competitive grant from the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award of $383,133 (70% NSF, 30% UK matching funds) will fund the acquisition of a state-of-the-art microfocus X-ray diffractometer.
Graduate student Erin Wachter was awarded an American Chemical Society Student Travel Award to present her research in two talks at the 251st ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA. The award was provided by the Division of Inorganic Chemistry. The titles of Erin's presentations include "Using a Ru(II) building block and a rapid screening approach to identify nucleic acid selective “light switch” compounds" and "Structural features that influence photochemical reactivity and phototherapeutic activity of Ru(II) polypyridyl complexes".
Erin Wachter was just awarded the The Myrle E. and Verle D. Nietzel Visiting Distinguished Faculty Program Award to support bringing Dr. Christine Cardin, Professor of Crystallography at the University of Reading, to UK to serve as the outside examiner for the thesis defense. This award enriches the dissertation experience for selected doctoral students whose dissertations are judged to be especially meritorious and also promotes to academic leaders at other institutions the high quality of scholarship achieved by our doctoral students.
University of Kentucky Department of Chemistry researchers Edith Glazer, Sean Parkin and students Erin Wachter and Diego Moyá recently published a study showing that specialized compounds containing the metal ruthenium may be able to visualize or damage specific DNA structures relevant for cancer.
University of Kentucky assistant professor of chemistry Edith "Phoebe" Glazer has received an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant for $715,000 over four years to continue her research into ruthenium-based cancer drugs.