News Archive

Dr. Laura-Isobel McCall's main approach implements state-of-the-art ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). High-resolution MS/MS data is then analyzed using big data computational tools and novel metabolomics techniques such as molecular networking and fragmentation trees. We are particularly interested in understanding how small molecule spatial distribution relates to function, by integrating 3D modeling with our mass spectrometry data, an approach called “chemical cartography”. 

Congratulations to Dr. Laura-Isobel McCall along with Dr. Zhibo Yang as they have been given an award from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support their proposed studies. You can read more at https://chanzuckerberg.com/science/programs-resources/single-cell-biology/metabolism/ . 

Dr. Zhibo Yang's research is in mass spectrometry (MS). This is a powerful analytical technique for sensitive detection and accurate identification of molecules. We are interested in the development and application novel MS techniques for bioanalysis. Our research is focused on: Single cell MS and MS imaging.

Congratulations to Dr. Zhibo Yang and Dr. Laura-Isobel McCall as they have been given an award from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support their proposed studies. You can read more at https://chanzuckerberg.com/science/programs-resources/single-cell-biology/metabolism/ . 

Helen Zgurskaya and Valentin V. Rybenkov from OU will be joining Harvard Medical School researcher Johan Paulsson who will lead a multi-institutional $104 million effort to study bacteria and antibiotic resistance, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced today. 

The work is funded by the newly established Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in an effort to address an unfolding crisis of antibiotic resistance that is expected to get worse as more bacteria become impervious to existing drugs.

Under Paulsson's leadership, scientists from 25 research groups in California, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the United Kingdom will work to develop novel microscopy, microfluidics, single-cell assays, and machine learning tools into technology for identifying bacteria and understanding their behavior.

The researchers plan to use this technology to improve diagnosis of bacterial infections in the clinic, and to aid in the development of more effective antibiotics in the lab. If it succeeds, the research has the potential to drastically transform how bacterial infections are diagnosed and treated.

More broadly, the work will aim to unravel the mysteries of bacterial behavior and the biologic mechanisms of bacterial disease

Yitong Dong, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, is the only recipient in the state of Oklahoma to have been selected for funding through the 2023 Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program.

Nanocrystals are a type of building block of nanotechnology that can be used to improve secure communications. Dong’s research group has developed a unique capability to produce extremely small nanocrystals that could enhance the purity of single photon emissions and advance capabilities toward scalable, room-temperature quantum communications.

“The future of quantum information science will enable us to encrypt our information communication in a nearly perfect way that it can never be hacked or eavesdropped,” Dong said. “This relies on quantum light sources, but current quantum light sources have to work at very low temperatures that usually require liquid helium and an ultra-high vacuum to have sufficient emission efficiencies, so that's going to be very expensive if we're looking at scalable quantum communication devices. Our nanocrystals, on the other hand, can emit light at room temperature with really high efficiencies.” 

By adjusting the size of these nanocrystals, some as small as several billionths of a meter, Dong’s research group is studying how the nanocrystals' surface influences how they emit light.

“For this project, we synthesized a very special nanocrystal called perovskite nanocrystal,” Dong said. “They are very, very bright. How they emit light and the color of the light emitted will change as a function of their sizes. As a nanocrystal materials research group, we can make billions or trillions of them with almost identical size, and then we can control their surface.”

Perovskite nanocrystals are easy to make and easily malleable. However, the surface lattices – the crystal units along the surface area of each nanocrystal – vary in their flexibility, which affects their single photon emission performance. The ability to customize the light emitted from these nanocrystals is an important requirement for quantum information network construction and a current gap in the field.

“Our research is targeting the development of single photon emitters using our nanocrystals, which are cheap and work at room temperatures, to enable the future construction of scalable quantum information networks,” Dong said. “What we propose to do in this project is to use a supramolecular matrix where we can embed our tiny nanocrystals into this matrix, and the matrix can rigidify the surface lattice of the nanocrystals.”

This composite material, Dong says, resembles a chocolate chip cookie. “By tuning the rigidity of the supramolecular matrix (the cookie bread), it will anchor the surface of the nanocrystals (chocolate chips) embedded inside of it and thereby rigidify the surface.”

Then, in addition to measuring the stability of this composite material, they will study how the changes in surface rigidity change the single photon emission properties, such as brightness and purity.

“In the end, we're targeting photo coherence,” he said. “Are the photons emitted from the same nanocrystal all the same in terms of their phase and wavelength? If they’re all the same, they’re going to be very useful for the future of quantum computing and quantum communications.”

About the Project

Yitong Dong is the principal investigator of the project, “Understanding the relationship between surface lattice rigidity and single photon emission dynamics in strongly confined cesium lead bromide perovskite quantum dots.” The five-year project is expected to receive approximately $875,000 from the Office of Basic Energy Sciences through the Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program, beginning July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2028. Dong is one of 93 early career scientists selected to receive a combined $135 million in funding from the 2023 DOE Early Career Research Program designed to develop the next generation of STEM leaders to solidify America’s role as the driver of science and innovation around the world.              

Researchers with the University of Oklahoma’s Natural Products Discovery Group recently published findings that indicate a novel breakthrough treatment for fungal infections.

Fungal infections are killing thousands of Americans each year, some with a morbidity rate of nearly 80%. To make matters worse, only a handful of antifungal treatments are available, and even those are becoming less effective as fungi become more resistant. However, University of Oklahoma researchers recently published findings in the Journal of Natural Products indicating that a novel breakthrough treatment may have been discovered.

“The molecule we’re excited about is called persephacin,” said Robert Cichewicz, Ph.D., principal investigator and Regents' Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences at OU. “This antifungal discovery appears to work on a broad spectrum of infectious fungi, and it is reasonably non-toxic to human cells, which is a huge deal because many current treatments are toxic to the human body.”

The rise in fungal infections is due, in part, to the successful treatment of other diseases. As people live longer and successfully undergo treatments like chemotherapy and organ transplants, they often live with weakened immune systems. When drugs that treat arthritis and other ailments that also weaken immune systems are added to the mix, a perfect storm is created for potentially deadly fungal infections.

Cichewicz, who has been researching fungi for nearly 20 years, leads the Natural Products Discovery Group at OU. This team of researchers discovered this novel molecule and developed a unique method for testing plants for their antifungal properties.

“Fungi are found throughout the botanical world, and plants and fungi often work together. Some of these fungi kill competitors or deter insects from eating the plant,” Cichewicz said. “We hypothesized that if these plant-dwelling fungi, known as endophytes, could help the plants fight off infections by killing the invading fungi, then these molecules might also be able to protect humans and animals from fungal pathogens. As it turns out, we were right.”

The team developed a novel way to procure leaf samples using a laser device called the Fast Laser-Enabled Endophyte Trapper, or FLEET. This method helps generate samples in a sterile environment and drastically increases the number of samples that can be acquired.

“Using traditional methods, we could process roughly four to six samples per minute,” Cichewicz said. “But our FLEET system is capable of aseptically generating between 500-600 tissue specimens in 10 minutes. This allows us to rapidly screen more samples and enhances the opportunity for potential drug discoveries.”

With assistance from the Office of Technology Commercialization at the University of Oklahoma, Cichewicz was awarded a U.S. patent for using persephacin to control infectious pathogens.

“It’s taken us a long time to get to this point, but now we’re hoping to work with an industry partner to help us develop this treatment,” Cichewicz said. “Antifungal resistance keeps evolving, and this could provide a new alternative. That’s why this molecule is so exciting.”

Read more about this research in the article, “Percephacin Is a Broad-Spectrum Antifungal Aureobasidin Metabolite That Overcomes Intrinsic Resistance in Apergillus fumigatus,” in the Journal of Natural Products, DOI 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.3c00382

John Peters, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and his electron bifurcation team have won the prestigious Faraday Horizon Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The team won the award for their biologically inspired discovery that captures energy from renewable sources.

The competitive international Horizon Prize celebrates groundbreaking developments that push the boundaries of science. The Royal Society of Chemistry has recognized excellence in the chemical sciences for more than 150 years.

The electron bifurcation team, a collaboration involving researchers from Duke University, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, Montana State University, Arizona State University, Washington State University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was the only North American team to win the 2023 Horizon Prize.

Peters, a presidential professor at OU, and the team successfully unraveled the rules underpinning how living systems split apart pairs of electrons into high- and low-energy pools without producing energy-wasting “short-circulating” reactions. Such reactions can be used to define new biologically inspired approaches to capture and manipulate energy from renewable sources.

“There is a lot of interest in the energy industry in upcycling fuels to make them more energy efficient and better for the environment,” Peters said. “Our research examines enzymatic catalysis and electron bifurcation to try to inform the Department of Energy about how to make better chemical reactions that would affect the energy industry.”

Peters joined OU in 2022 after serving as director and principal investigator of the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Biological Electron Transfer and Catalysis Energy Frontiers Research Center at Washington State University and Montana State University, where much of the research originated. Peters and the team submitted their application for the Horizon Prize while he was affiliated with Washington State University.

“The Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences congratulates Dr. Peters and the electron bifurcation team on being selected for this highly prestigious recognition of their achievement,” said David Wrobel, dean of the college. “Throughout his career, Dr. Peters has consistently demonstrated creativity, innovation and leadership in fundamental electron transfer reactions in biology that are relevant to energy and agriculture. Dr. Peters joined OU last year from Washington State and brings an extensive record of excellence and national recognition in research. This honor illustrates the caliber of faculty we attract to OU who are driving our research mission forward.”

At Washington State University, Peters served as professor, director of the Institute of Biological Chemistry and special adviser to the Vice President for Research for Strategic Research Initiatives. He previously served as professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Undergraduate Program Committee at Montana State University.

Peters earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Oklahoma. He earned his doctorate in biochemistry from Virginia Tech University and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Peters also received the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.

For more information about the Faraday Horizon Prize, visit rsc.org.

On April 19th, US Congressman, Tom Cole, visited the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Congressman Cole was greeted by Dr. Ronald Halterman, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Kelly Damphousse, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Charles Rice, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Scott Mason, (OU Director of Federal Programs) and Melanie Dickens (Associate VPR for Research Operations).

Congressman Cole wished to learn more about Prof. Rice’s anti-MRSA research and interact with his students. Dr. Rice, accompanied by two graduate students, four First Year Research Experience (FYRE) students and a senior undergraduate researcher gave the Congressman a tour of the lab and spoke with him about how this research improves the health of our citizens.

Dr. Rice then escorted Congressman Cole to the labs of Dr. Helen Zgurskaya and Dr. Adam Duerfeldt who also work in the area of antibiotic discovery. Mr. Cole remarked that he truly enjoyed his interaction with the students and faculty and found his visit very informative.  

Associate Professor Charles Rice recently attended the annual BIO Show in San Diego alongside Blake Hopiavuori of the Office of Technology Development and Tom Kupiec, owner of Oklahoma City's Analytical Research Laboratories and DNA Solutions. Their intent is to increase the presence of Oklahoma and our research in both industry and academia. According to Kupiec, they’d like to see more public-private partnerships to further develop the future of the Innovation District.

Jesse Coker, a junior pursuing a B.S. in biochemistry and a B.A. in economics, is an active participant of the PE-ET Honor Society, co-chair of the College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Scholars Program and team leader for The Oklahoma Group. An ambitious student leader and research enthusiast, Jessie was a National Merit Finalist, Honors College Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant recipient and Intramural Coordinator of the Year.

In addition to his research involvement at the Fesik Laboratory at Vanderbilt, Jesse is an undergraduate researcher for Dr. Adam Duerfeldt, where his research focuses on novel antibiotic therapies. Ultimately, Jesse plans to pursue a Ph.D. in structural or chemical biology, focusing on drug discovery. He plans to start a collaborative, research-focused nonprofit biotech that develops cures for orphan diseases, making affordable, life-saving treatments available to the public.

Casey Cai is a sophomore biology and mathematics major with minors in Chinese, medical humanities and chemistry. In addition to her recent accomplishment, Casey is a National Merit Scholar, Medical Humanities Scholar and has received numerous honors and awards based on her research and academic achievements. She is active in organizations such as the OU Math Club, the Asian-American Student Association and the Henderson Scholars.

As a participant in the First-Year Research Experience (FYRE) program, she also works as an undergraduate researcher with Dr. Anthony Burgett to synthesize and modify natural products that inhibit the growth of certain human cancer cell lines. She aspires to complete an M.D./Ph.D. in mathematical biology, enabling her to continue researching cancer growth and treatment by way of mathematical modeling, while  teaching at a research-intensive medical school.

Cole Townsend, a senior Biochemistry major, is the recipient of the 2016 Carl Albert Award; the Carl Albert Award is given to the most outstanding graduating senior from OU’s College of Arts and Sciences. Cole, a native of Ada, Oklahoma, has been an active undergraduate researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Burgett in Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry since his freshmen year.

His undergraduate research focuses on understanding how the anti-cancer compound OSW-1 inhibits cancer cell proliferation through a novel mode of action, and Cole’s multi-disciplinary approach in investigating this research question has employed a combination of biological and analytical chemistry methods. Cole is completing an Honors thesis on his research project, and he has presented on his research in several different forums, including as a representative of OU at the Oklahoma State Capitol during the 2016 Oklahoma Research Day.

Cole is the recipient of many other awards and honors, including the Chris T. Undergraduate Research Fellowship, which is a privately supported fellowship in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry designed to support undergraduate researchers. Although originally entering OU as a pre-medical student, Cole is now fully committed to a professional future as a biomedical researcher. He is planning on starting his graduate school studies at the extremely prestigious International Max Planck Research School for Molecular Biology at the University of Göttingen, Germany, which is a program that brings together the best and brightest scientific talents from across the world.

A new antibiotic formulation developed to fight MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria was discovered by a team of faculty within the department, including principal investigator and professor, Dr. Charles Rice, and professors Robert Cichewicz and Daniel Glatzhofer. By neutralizing the MRSA bacteria, the resistance to methicillin will be eliminated.

“The use of first-line antibiotics to kill MRSA or other infectious bacteria will improve patient outcomes and lower the economic burden,” Dr. Rice said. “The discovery in our laboratory has made it possible to create an effective antibiotic that can reduce expensive hospitalization costs."

The new formula must undergo more testing and requires FDA approval.

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) is awarded annually to students who demonstrate their accomplishments through research proposals, academic records, faculty recommendations and their interest in laboratory science. In addition to a $5000 fellowship provided to support their research, financial support is provided to visit an industrial campus to present their results.

Tekenari Tienebeso, a biochemistry major studying under Dr. Indrajeet Sharma, was awarded with the highly competitive 2016 SURF award. His research proposal was titled "Synthetic Access to Pseurotin Core via a Diazo-OH Insertion/Conia-Ene Cascade Abstract" with the goal to access the spiro-γ-lactam core of pseurotin natural products through a stepwise diazo-OH insertion/Conia-Ene cascade sequence. Upon successful completion, a four step asymmetric synthesis of this biologically relevant core will be achieved. In conjunction with the synthesis of this core, investigation of the well-known Conia-Ene cycloisomerization reaction using electronically unique γ-lactams as applied to the synthesis of spirocycles in an asymmetric fashion would accomplish a challenging feat faced by synthetic chemists.