Nobel Laureate: David MacMillan, Ph.D

Date: February 16, 2024

Times: 

• Seminar One: 10:30 - 11:45 a.m. "The Path to Invention and Discovery in Catalysis"

• Seminar Two: 3:00 - 4:15 p.m. "The Development of Asymmetric Organocatalysis and Metallaphotoredox"

Location: Rowan Glassboro Campus; Chamberlain Student Center, Eynon Ballroom. These seminars are in-person only and will not be recorded. 

Audience: Open to all. Register here to help us in our planning.

Cost: Free

Parking: Please enter through the Welcome Gate (off of Rt. 322), where the attendant will direct you to parking at the Townhouse Garages. Click for map.

Seminar Abstracts: 

• Seminar One: The Path to Invention and Discovery in Catalysis
  • This lecture, intended for a broad scientific audience, will describe the advent and development of asymmetric organocatalysis in Dr. MacMillan’s laboratory. As part of this overview, he will explore concepts of chemical reactivity, catalysis, and the asymmetry of organic molecules. Dr. MacMillan will examine the impact of organocatalysis on modern synthetic chemistry, explore real-world applications of this technology and will discuss how organocatalysis may continue to impact scientific research and society in the future.

• Seminar Two: The Development of Asymmetric Organocatalysis and Metallaphotoredox
  • Dr. MacMillan will build upon his first presentation by highlighting why organic catalysts have become widely explored in modern synthetic chemistry. He will discuss the application of visible light photocatalysis to the discovery or invention of transformations that will be conceptually or synthetically valuable (and sometimes, hopefully, both). Specifically, Dr. MacMillan will highlight recent applications of photoredox catalysis in his group including the development of new metallaphotoredox reactions and high-resolution µMap technology, which provides a powerful means to probe biological pathways at the subcellular level.

About the Speaker: David W. C. MacMillan was born in Bellshill, Scotland and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he worked with Dr. Ernie Colvin. In 1990, he began his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine, before undertaking a postdoctoral position with Professor Dave Evans at Harvard University in 1996. He began his independent career at University of California, Berkeley, in July of 1998 before moving to Caltech in 2000 as the Earle C. Anthony Chair of Organic Chemistry. In 2006, Dave moved to Princeton University as the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Chemistry. He served as Department Chair from 2010–2015 and is currently the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University of Chemistry. Dave shares the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Benjamin List “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.” His research interests encompass a wide range of organic chemistry, including the development of new areas in organocatalysis and photoredox catalysis.

Event Sponsored By: Rowan University; College of Science & Mathematics

Chrysothemis Brown, M.B.B.S., Ph.D.

Early Life Imprinting of Immune Tolerance

Date: November 8th, 2023

Time: 2:00 - 3:15 p.m.

Location: Business Hall, Room 104, and Zoom

Audience: Open to all

Cost: Free

Abstract: Work in the Brown lab addresses how the immune system regulates diverse responses to commensal microbiota and pathogens in order to generate inflammation or tolerance, and the reciprocal role of the tissue microenvironment in shaping immune cell development. A window of opportunity exists during early life for establishing tolerance to the gut microbiota. Recent work from the lab defined the cell types and mechanisms that instruct peripheral regulatory T cell development and tolerance to symbiotic commensal microbes during early life. This work identified a novel lineage of peripheral antigen-presenting cells, named Thetis cells, with transcriptional homology to medullary thymic epithelial cells, highlighting parallels between mechanisms of thymic and peripheral tolerance. Ongoing work addresses the role of distinct Thetis cell and dendritic cell subsets in regulation of immune tolerance and inflammation.

Bio: Chrysothemis Brown is an Assistant Professor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and an Assistant Attending physician in the department of Pediatrics. Dr. Brown did her undergraduate medical training at Oxford University and University College London, UK. She trained in Pediatrics in London and obtained her Ph.D in Immunology under the mentorship of Randy Noelle. Her work focused on the role of a dietary metabolite, vitamin A, in the regulation of T cell differentiation. For her post-doctoral research, Dr. Brown joined the lab of Alexander Rudensky to pursue studies in the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of immune cell fate. Her work led to the discovery of novel dendritic cell subsets and their transcriptional regulators, both in mice and humans. Alongside this, she pioneered single-cell transcriptomic studies of pediatric autoimmune disease and human cancer. Dr. Brown has received numerous awards including the NIH DP2 New Innovator Award, the Pew Trust Biomedical Scholars award, the V Foundation Pediatric Scholars Award, and the HHMI Gilliam Award for trainees and mentors.

Event Sponsors: College of Science & Mathematics; Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences; U-RISE Progra

"Nature's Best Hope"

Presented by Entomologist & NY Times Bestseller, Dr. Doug Tallamy

View the Recording

Date: October 4th, 2023

Time: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. (An expo with related information will begin at 6:20 p.m.; Dr. Tallamy's books will be available for purchase by cash/check only)

Location: Rowan Glassboro Campus; Chamberlain Student Center, Eynon Ballroom. Click for map.

Audience: Open to all. Registration Required.

Cost: Free

Parking: Registrants will be emailed an event parking pass for the Townhouse Garages. Click for map.

Recent headlines about global insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our country's current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us.  Such losses are not an option if we wish to continue our current standard of living on Planet Earth. The good news is that none of this is inevitable. Dr. Doug Tallamy, the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology & Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, will share how to choose the right plants for our landscapes to not only address the biodiversity crisis, but help our climate crisis as well. Tallamy will discuss simple steps that each of us can—and must—take to reverse declining biodiversity, why we must change our adversarial relationship with nature to a collaborative one, and why we, ourselves, are nature’s best hope.

Successful examples of recent biodiverse plantings on Rowan's campus will also be highlighted during this event.

About the Speaker: Dr. Doug Tallamy has authored 112 research publications and has taught insect-related courses for 42 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home; The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke; Nature's Best Hope, a New York Times bestseller; and The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award. In 2021, he co-founded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari (https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/). His awards include recognition from The Garden Writers Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, Ecoforesters, The Garden Club of America and The American Horticultural Association.

Event Sponsored By:

College of Science & Mathematics

School of Earth & Environment

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Ric Edelman College of Communications & Creative Arts

Division of Facilities, Planning & Operations

Laura König, Ph.D.

"Using Mobile Technology to Understand and Improve Eating Behaviors"
 
Tuesday, April 11th, 2023
1:00 - 2:00 p.m. 

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About the Speaker

Dr. Laura König is Junior Professor of Public Health Nutrition at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She earned her Ph.D. in Health Psychology from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Before joining the University of Bayreuth in 2020, she was postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, U.K. Her research interests include psychological determinants of health behaviors including eating and physical activity, the design of health behavior interventions including digital and choice architecture interventions, research participation effects, and effective science communication. Her work has been funded by the German Research Foundation and the Bavarian Ministry of Health and Care and she is the recipient of the 2022 Early Career Award from the European Health Psychology Society.

About this Topic

Eating behavior is highly complex: people make more than 200 eating-related decisions every day. Traditionally, behavioral and medical scientists studied eating behavior using questionnaires (which typically require people to average across many different occasions), or in behavioral experiments (which usually focus on single occasions in an artificial setting). Smartphones and other mobile sensors now allow to study eating behavior in daily life and in real-time, across different contexts. In addition, mobile technology can be harnessed to deliver interventions in meaningful moments, potentially increasing the effectiveness of dietary interventions. This talk will present an overview of technological and related theoretical and methodological domains in this field and provide an outlook into what to expect in the near future, with implications across a range of disciplines and settings.

Jacqueline Mogle, Ph.D.

"Ecologically valid assessment of cognitive functioning: Toward the early detection and prevention of dementia."
 
Tuesday, March 21st, 2023
1:00 - 2:00 p.m. 

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About this Seminar

Dr. Mogle discusses her work using novel and innovative mobile tools to understand how people meet daily cognitive demands (e.g., remembering to take medication). She discusses methodological implications and strategies for the assessment of everyday cognitive functioning as well as the analysis of intensively collected cognitive data. She then shares new data linking these tools to the early stages of non-normative trajectories in cognitive aging such as dementia.

About the Speaker

Dr. Mogle is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Clemson University. She received her PhD in Experimental Psychology from Syracuse University and worked as an Assistant Research Professor at Penn State University, where she supported a variety of NIH funded projects focused on assessment of daily processes (including stress, cognitive functioning, and health). Dr. Mogle is an expert in the use of momentary assessment approaches, where individuals complete multiple surveys each day for several days to help us understand their real-world experiences of health and well-being. Using sophisticated statistical models, she has examined how daily stress processes relate to longer-term physiological and psychological health conditions. More recently she has focused the assessment of daily cognitive problems as an early indicator of cognitive decline that is consistent with non-normative, age-related cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Her measures of the daily experience of memory and attentional lapses are now incorporated into a dozen intensive assessments studies of cognitive aging, to determine their predictive utility for detecting early signs of cognitive decline before impairments impact independent living. Her work was recently featured by the National Institute on Aging and the Methods Matter dementia podcast.

Christopher McCurdy, Ph.D., BSPh, PhD, FAAPS

"How Close is Cure to Pain?"
 
Friday, October 7, 2022
12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
View Recording

About the speaker

Dr. McCurdy is a Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutics and The Frank A. Duckworth Eminent Scholar Chair in Drug Research and Development. He is also the Director of the UF Translational Drug Development Core. Dr. McCurdy completed his PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Georgia and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. 

Dr. McCurdy is a broadly trained pharmaceutical scientist, and pharmacist whose research focuses on the design, synthesis, and development of drugs to treat pain, anxiety, and substance abuse. For over 25 years, much of his research has focused on opioid, neuropeptide FF, and sigma receptor ligand/probe design, synthesis, pharmacological evaluation, and development. He is an internationally recognized expert on kratom (Mitragyna speciosa), which is under investigation for opioid withdrawal syndrome, opioid use disorder, and treating pain. A significant portion of his career has been dedicated to the development of novel sigma receptor ligands, in collaboration with interdisciplinary groups, to generate and optimize selective ligands that could serve as critical experimental tools. More recently, he has worked to develop these as potential medication development leads to attenuate the effects of cocaine, methamphetamine, and pain. 

Most notably, Dr. McCurdy has developed a PET/MR imaging diagnostic agent for visualizing the origins of chronic neuropathic pain by interacting with sigma receptors at the site of nerve damage. The Phase 1 and 2 human clinical trials are currently being conducted at Stanford University.  He has published more than 150 manuscripts and holds 6 patents.  He is currently funded by multiple NIH grants and the Florida Department of Health.

In addition, Dr. McCurdy serves as a consultant to the US Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and previously served as President of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS).

Christopher McCurdy, Ph.D., BSPh, PhD, FAAPS

"Kratom 101 - History, Chemistry and Pharmacology ?"
 
Thursday, October 6, 2022
2:00 - 3:15 p.m. 

View Recording

About the speaker

Dr. McCurdy is a Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutics and The Frank A. Duckworth Eminent Scholar Chair in Drug Research and Development. He is also the Director of the UF Translational Drug Development Core. Dr. McCurdy completed his PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Georgia and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. 

Dr. McCurdy is a broadly trained pharmaceutical scientist, and pharmacist whose research focuses on the design, synthesis, and development of drugs to treat pain, anxiety, and substance abuse. For over 25 years, much of his research has focused on opioid, neuropeptide FF, and sigma receptor ligand/probe design, synthesis, pharmacological evaluation, and development. He is an internationally recognized expert on kratom (Mitragyna speciosa), which is under investigation for opioid withdrawal syndrome, opioid use disorder, and treating pain. A significant portion of his career has been dedicated to the development of novel sigma receptor ligands, in collaboration with interdisciplinary groups, to generate and optimize selective ligands that could serve as critical experimental tools. More recently, he has worked to develop these as potential medication development leads to attenuate the effects of cocaine, methamphetamine, and pain. 

Most notably, Dr. McCurdy has developed a PET/MR imaging diagnostic agent for visualizing the origins of chronic neuropathic pain by interacting with sigma receptors at the site of nerve damage. The Phase 1 and 2 human clinical trials are currently being conducted at Stanford University.  He has published more than 150 manuscripts and holds 6 patents.  He is currently funded by multiple NIH grants and the Florida Department of Health.

In addition, Dr. McCurdy serves as a consultant to the US Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and previously served as President of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS).

Rhodora Romero-Aldemita, Ph.D.

"Biotechnology Innovations for Food Security and Environmental Sustainability in the Changing Times"
 
Monday, November 15, 2021
11:00 - 12:00 p.m.

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Rhodora Romero-Aldemita, Ph.D.

"Raising Public Consumer Understanding and Perception of Agricultural Biotechnologies"
 
Monday, November 15, 2021
3:30 - 4:30 p.m.

View Recording

Lisa McCauley Parles, Esq.; Partner, Parles Rekem, LLP

"Accessing Housing and Residential Services for Individuals with Autism and Developmental Disabilities"
 
Friday, April 23, 2021
2:00 - 3:00 p.m.