The Chemistry Department Mourns the Loss of Ben Boussert

Ben was tragically removed from the lives of the many he touched on July 16, 2005 in an automobile accident near Berkeley, California. In addition to Benjamin Boussert, two other Berkeley chemistry graduate students perished in this accident.

Ben Boussert grew up in Baton Rouge. He graduated from Baton Rouge High School in 1995 in the top 5% of his class, possessing a passion for science and engineering. His performance at LSU was laudatory, particularly when one considers that he double majored in chemical engineering and chemistry. Ben was a University Medalist in the LSU Class of 1999 (4.00 GPA), received the American Chemical Society's Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry in 1999, and the Department of Chemistry's Undergraduate Research Award in 1999. He conducted research for four years at LSU, under the tutelage of Professor Robin McCarley, in the area of chemical sensors. Specifically, Ben worked on a joint project with McCarley and Professor Robert Strongin that dealt with sugar detection using gold nanoparticles. His interest in nanoscience and sensing technologies grew during his tenure at LSU, and as a result, he chose to further his training in this area by attending graduate school.

Ben applied for and received two national fellowships (NSF Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry and DOE Graduate Fellowship; he was also a Hertz Fellow Semifinalist) and chose the one that matched up with the PhD research group in which he wished to participate, namely, that of Professor Paul Alivisatos of the University of California at Berkeley. Alivisatos is an extremely well-respected nanoscientist working on the fundamentals and applications of nanostructures. Ben had done well at Berkeley, and was to defend his dissertation in the next few months. His family had the opportunity of seeing Ben participate in the annual Berkeley commencement exercises in May of 2005; those of us that know his father, Christian Boussert - master glass blower for the College of Basic Sciences - saw the pride in this father's face when he spoke of this joyous event. Ben was considering a career with a governmental regulatory agency focusing on chemistry issues.

Ben was a gentle, kind, thoughtful, very intelligent young man who always had a smile in his pocket. His intellectual brilliance is amongst the best we have seen at LSU. We would all feel fortunate to have a son and brother such as Benjamin Boussert.

Benjamin's potential to be a great scientist and great person are gone now, but our thoughts of him and what we imagine he could have been will fuel us all on our journey to being the best that we can be.

Chris and Anne Boussert have indicated that the suggestion of a scholarship fund in Benjamin's name is a good one. At this time, the scholarship fund has no particular name. If you wish to donate funds to help endow this account for a Boussert scholarship, please contact the LSU Foundation (Ann M Marmande, annmarie@lsu.edu or James Harris, jharris@lsufoundation.org). A tentative account has been set up until the type of scholarship has been decided by the Bousserts, and thus your contribution should be earmarked for the Boussert Scholarship Fund.

Kevin Smith will receive the R. B. Woodward Lifetime Achievement Award in Porphyrin Chemistry (sponsored by the Society for Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines) at the Fourth International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines, in Rome, Italy, July 2-7, 2006. The Award involves a one hour lecture at the Conference, and Smith will receive a plaque and a monetary award.

Grants

The LSU Office of Research & Graduate studies has awarded a faculty research grant ($40,000) to an interdisciplinary team led by Dr. Jayne Garno, for a proposal entitled: "Synthetic, Experimental and Theoretical Investigations of the Structure and Properties of Ultra-this Films of Porphyrin Molecules for Application in Electronic Devices." The Co-PI's include: Bin Chen, Graca Vicente, Phil Sprunger (Physics) and Eizi Morikawa (CAMD).

Leslie G. Butler and Randall W. Hall, Three-Dimensional Chemical Analysis and Molecular Dynamics Simulations: Application to Flame Retardants in Polymers, NSF 3 years, $450,000.

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William Armstrong, head of the former LSU Chemistry Library, will be giving a talk at the ACS Meeting in Washington D.C. in August entitled, “Metamorphosis of the chemistry library: What will emerge?” The talk is being sponsored by the Division of Chemical Information as part of the session, “Planning for the Future: Chemistry Libraries in 2015.”   The presentation will be given on Sunday, August 28th from 9:30 a.m. to 9:50 a.m.

Abstract:

Forces ranging from institutional financial pressures and space constraints to rapid technological advances are acting on the chemistry library causing a metamorphosis. Technological advances have revolutionized the way scientists communicate with one another and the way this information is disseminated. Has the library’s role in the flow of information changed in response to these new developments? Have the needs of patrons changed as a result? What shape or role will the library have in the future? What should its role be? The author will provide an overview of some of the changes occurring or likely to occur, while highlighting any positive or negative aspects these changes might entail. We must balance an ideal with a knowledge of the realities which act as constraints, or parameters, in which these changes will take place. Change will occur. Will we merely react, or will we direct this change?

Julia Chan

"So Many Lobes, So Little Time: Heavy Fermion Magnetic Superconductors"" Inorganic Chemistry Gordon Research Conference (Invited), Salve Regina University, Newport, RI, 2005.

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Robin McCarley

Professor McCarley and his research group are having some of their recent work highlighted as a News of the Week feature in Chemical and Engineering News in next week's print edition (August 1, 2005) and in the online version (see:http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i31/8331polymer.html). The highlight concerns work published in Angewandte Chemie by Sreelatha Balamurugan, Grigor Bantchev, Yuming Yang and McCarley and focuses on the synthesis and properties of a newly discovered water-soluble poly(thiophene) whose color changes with solution temperature.

Robert Hammer

Michael J. Barany, Robert P. Hammer, R. B. Merrifield and George Barany. Efficient Synthesis of 1,2,4-Dithiazolidine-3,5-diones [Dithiasuccinoyl-Amines] from Bis(chlorocarbonyl)disulfane Plus Bis(trimethylsilyl)amines. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 508-509 (2005).

Vladimír Setnicka, Rong Huang, Catherine L. Thomas, Marcus A. Etienne, Jan Kubelka, Robert P. Hammer and Timothy A. Keiderling. IR Study of Cross-Strand Coupling in a b-Hairpin Peptide Using Isotopic Labels. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 4992-4993 (2005).

Wei Liu, Timothy J. Jensen, Frank R. Fronczek, Robert P. Hammer, Kevin M. Smith, and M. Graça H. Vicente. Synthesis and Cellular Studies of Nonaggregated Water-Soluble Phthalocyanines. J. Med. Chem. 48, 1033-1041 (2005).

Mariah J. McMasters, Robert P. Hammer and Robin L. McCarley.  Surface-Induced Aggregation of b-Amyloid Peptide by w-Substituted Alkanethiol Monolayers Supported on Gold. Langmuir, 21, 4464-4470 (2005).

Martha Sibrian-Vazquez, Timothy J. Jensen, Frank R. Fronczek, Robert P. Hammer, and M. Graça H. Vicente. Synthesis and Characterization of Positively Charged Porphyrin-Peptide Conjugates. Bioconjugate Chem. in press (2005).

Lars G. J. Hammarström, Yanwan Fu, Sid Vail, Robert P. Hammer and Mark L. McLaughlin. A convenient preparation of an orthogonally protected Calpha,Calpha- disubstituted amino acid analog of lysine:  1-tert-butyloxycarbonyl-4-((9-fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl)amino)-piperidine-4-carboxylic acid. Org. Synth.  81, 213-224 (2005).

Roger A Laine

Ibrahim, S.A., G. Henderson, H. Fei and R.A. Laine, 2005. 2-Phenoxyethanol is a double-edged sword against the Formosan subterranean termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae. Biopesticides International 1: 25-37.

Liu, Y, Henderson, G, Mao, L and R A Laine, 2005, Seasonal Variation of Juvenile Hormone Titers of the Formosan Substerranean Termite, Coptotermes formosanus (Rhinotermitidae), Physiological Ecology 34: 557-562.

Sanford Mendonca and Roger A Laine, 2005, "Synthesis of Sterically Crowded Derivatives of Anomeric Pairs of D-Glucose Disaccharides", Carbohydrate Research 340: pp 2055-2059.

Fei, Huixin, Gregg Henderson and Roger A Laine, 2005, Increased Search Tunnel Formation by Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in 2-Phenoxyethanol Treated Sand, J. Entomol. Sci. 40: 327-336.

Brian Hales

"Variant MoFe Proteins of Azotobacter vinelandii: Effects of Carbon Monoxide on Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectra Generated during Enzyme Turnover" Z. Maskos, K. Fisher, M. Sorlie, W. E. Newton and B. J. Hales, J. Biol. Inorg. Chem. (2005) 10, 394-406.

Indu Kheterpal

Williams, Angela D.; Sega, Matt; Chen, Maolian; Kheterpal, Indu; Geva, Merav; Berthelier, Valerie; Kaleta, David T.; Cook, Kelsey D.; Wetzel, Ronald. Structural properties of A-beta protofibrils stabilized by a small molecule. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2005), 102(20), 7115-7120.

Kevin Smith

Y. Song, R. E. Haddad, S.-L. Jia, S. Hok, M. M. Olmstead, D. J. Nurco, N. E. Schore, J. Zhang, J.-G. Ma, K. M. Smith, S. Gazeau, J. Pecault, J.-C. Marchon, C. J. Medforth and J. A. Shelnutt. Energetics and Structural Consequences of Axial Ligand Coordination in Non-planar Nickel Porphyrins. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 1179.

S. H. Lee and K. M. Smith. Sulfolenoporphyrins: Synthons for Refunctionalization of Porphyrins. Tetrahedron Lett. 2005, 46, 2009.

W. Liu, T. J. Jensen, F. R. Fronczek, R. P. Hammer, K. M Smith, and M. G. H. Vicente. Synthesis and Cellular Studies of Non-aggregated Water-soluble Phthalocyanines. J. Med. Chem. 2005, 48, 1033.

I. Bronshtein, K. M. Smith and B. Ehrenberg. The Effect of pH on the Topography of Porphyrins in Lipid Membranes. Photochem. Photobiol. 2005, 81, 446.

W. Liu, M. R. Kumar, M. G. H. Vicente, F. R. Fronczek and K. M. Smith. New Water-soluble Phthalocyanines and other Tetrapyrroles for Application in Photodynamic Therapy. Proc. SPIE 2005, 5689, 39.

R. J. Luguya, F. R. Fronczek, K. M. Smith and M. G. H. Vicente. Carboranylcorroles. Tetrahedron Lett. 2005, 46, 5365.

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Faculty, staff and student employees (especially graduating students) leaving the University are reminded to update their mailing addresses.  Home addresses can be updated in three ways:

1.    E-mail Payroll at payroll@lsu.edu

2.    Complete and submit to the Payroll Office a Change of Address form located at the following web address:  http://www.fas.lsu.edu/acctServices/pay/forms/as481.pdf

3.    Update address information via PAWS under Personal Preferences/Directory Information or by using the following link:  http://appl008.lsu.edu/pwsdefault.nsf/diruadr?openagent

International employees who need a social security number and would like a ride to the Social Security Office to apply may e-mail the International Cultural Center at ICC@lsu.edu to request transportation assistance.

For Reimbursement of Meals for any speakers, visitors, grad students, etc., you must provide itemized receipt in order to get reimbursed. If you should happen to have lunch at Chimes or the Faculty Club, you must ask for an itemized receipt. Accounting has advised us that they will no longer honor any receipt that is not itemized. This is a state law requirement.

To the faculty:  Please come by and introduce the new post docs, grad students or visiting professors to our office staff. We will be glad to help in getting an account established in our OOTS system and give them a brief training session on using the OOTS system.