Monday, September 29, 2014

Green Chemistry Committment launches Webinar Series


The Green Chemistry Education Webinar Series will highlight relevant topics for chemistry educators and students to incorporate green chemistry in to their courses, labs and programs. The webinars are open to the community and will be recorded and posted for access.
Upcoming Webinars:
October 15, 2014, 2pm – 3pm EDT,  Register Now
Green Chemistry: The Missing Element in Chemistry Education
An Interactive Webinar featuring Dr. John C. Warner, 2014 Perkin Medal Winner, Founder and C.T.O, Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, Download the Flyer: GCC_Warner_October 15 2014
November 19, 2014, 2pm – 3pm EST
Modernizing the Organic Chemistry Laboratory with Green Chemistry
Dr. Jane Wissinger, University of Minnesota
Do you have suggestions for a seminar topic?  Send GCC your ideas.
Early Fall Application Deadline: October 11, 2014

Green Corps is looking for college graduates who are ready to take on the
biggest environmental challenges of our day.
In Green Corps’ yearlong paid program, you’ll get intensive training in the skills you need to make a difference in the world. You’ll get hands-on experience fighting to solve urgent environmental problems — global warming, deforestation, water pollution, factory farming and many others — with groups like Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch. And when you graduate from Green Corps, we’ll help you find a career with one of the nation’s leading environmental and social change groups.
For more information, read on or visit http://www.greencorps.org/findoutmore.
In your year with Green Corps:
Be trained by the best: Green Corps organizers take part in trainings with leading figures in the environmental and social change movements: people like Adam Ruben, former political director and current board president of MoveOn.org, and Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org.
Gain experience across the country: Green Corps sends organizers to jumpstart campaigns for groups such as Rainforest Action Network, Power Shift, and Environment America in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and dozens of other places in between.
Make an impact on today’s environmental challenges: Green Corps organizers have built the campaigns that helped keep the Arctic safe from drilling; led to new laws to support clean, renewable energy; convinced major corporations to stop dumping in our oceans; and much, much more.
Get paid! Green Corps organizers earn a salary of $25,000. Organizers also have a chance to opt into our health care program with a pre-tax monthly salary deferral. We offer paid sick days and holidays, two weeks paid vacation and a student loan repayment program for those who qualify.
Launch your career: Green Corps will help connect you to environmental and progressive groups that are looking for full-time staff to build their organizations and help them create social change and protect our environment.

Research Opportunity

We invite your best students to apply for our NIH/NCI-funded (5 R25CA023944-31) Pediatric Oncology Education (POE) Program<http://www.stjude.org/poe>. The program offers a unique opportunity for pre-doctoral students preparing for careers in the biomedical sciences, medicine, and pharmacy to gain biomedical and oncology research experience. Students participate in basic or clinical oncology research, research and clinical conferences, and a core lecture series designed specifically for them. All participants make a PowerPoint presentation on their research project and submit a report on their research project written in the style of a journal in which their faculty mentor publishes.  

A primary goal of the POE program is to encourage students to pursue a career in cancer research. Thus, we are particularly interested in highly qualified students with a serious career interest in cancer research, either as a clinical scientist or laboratory-based research scientist

Suzanne Gronemeyer, PhD
Director, Pediatric Oncology Education (POE) Program
Associate Director, Academic Programs
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
262 Danny Thomas Place
Memphis, TN 38105-3678

This week's seminar

Radical Frontiers in Catalysis
Dr. Theodore Betley
Harvard University

Within metal-catalyzed reactions, developing electronic structure to function relations is critical
for obtaining desirable reactivity. Electronic structure considerations dictate the stability and/
or reactivity of both mononuclear and polynuclear complexes. We have developed weak-field
ligand platforms to enable (1) iron-based reagents to catalyze C-H bond functionalization, and
(2) unveil small-molecule activation at polynuclear reaction sites.

Regents Hall 310, 3:15PM

Friday, September 19, 2014

Upcoming Seminar

Nanodiscs, Membrane Proteins, and Mass Spectrometry: New Tools for Studying Protein-Lipid Interaction

Dr. Michael Marty, '10
Friday September 26th, 3:15, Regents 310

Membrane proteins play a critical role in biochemistry, bioenergy, and pharmaceuticals. However,
little is known about interactions between membrane proteins and their lipid bilayer environment.
This is largely due to a lack of adequate tools for quantifying these complex interactions. Nanodiscs,
nanoscale lipoprotein particles modeled after HDL, provide a unique platform for studying
membrane proteins in a homogeneous and monodisperse lipid bilayer environment. I will present
research examining membrane proteins embedded in Nanodiscs with native ion mobility-mass
spectrometry. Native mass spectrometry preserves noncovalent interactions, allowing detection
of the intact membrane protein-Nanodisc complex as well as metastable dissociation products.
Comparing the masses of these dissociation products with molecular dynamics simulations
reveals a “magic number” of lipids that corresponds to the number of polar contacts between
the membrane protein and its lipid bilayer annular belt. This combination of nanotechnology,
biochemistry, and mass spectrometry provides new tools for quantifying interactions between the
lipid bilayer and membrane proteins.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Canon River Clean-Up

The Canon River Watershed Partnership (CRWP) is asking for volunteers for the Annual Watershed Wide Cleanup

The cleanup is September 20th from 9 AM - Noon. Most St. Olaf students go to Sechler Park here in Northfield. Students do not need to bring anything as we will have trash bags and gloves provided (and a lunch!)

Email Alana Bartolai alana@crwp.net if interested in joining or sign up online at http://crwp.net/work/watershed-cleanup/.