WEEKLY MEMO, May 5, 2008

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1.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

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1.2: CARD READERS 2nd FLOOR EAST & WEST:  The BNC card reader system installation is will expand to include work on the **2nd Floor EAST** wing (BRK 20XX) starting 05/05/2008.  Some cutting and grinding can be expected as the card readers are mounted in the galley and on each lab door (BRK 2031, 2037, 2077, & 2081). The installation work is also continuing on the **2nd Floor WEST** wing (BRK 22XX) where researchers can still expect to see electricians in their labs and in some cases may be asked to briefly suspend experiments as door strikers are installed. 

If you have any issues or concerns please contract Mary Jo Totten (61173) or Mark Voorhis (43036).

1.3:  TOWN HALL MEETING: Thursday, 05.15.08, 1:30, BRK 1001

1.4: Additional landscaping work will be taking place around the BNC to repair several problems with the existing landscape.  These should have a minimal affect on the building, but at times may have sidewalks temporarily closed.  Additionally, there will be some noise- and vibration-creating activities where concrete must be cut and removed.  This work will take place between May 1 and June 19, 2008.  Major vibration-creating activities are planned for mornings during the week of May 5.  Please contact John Weaver jrweaver@purdue.edu if this timing is problematic.

1.5:  Summer Project . . . Birck gets waxedJ:  Birck rooms 2019, 2021, 2023, 2025, 2044, 2046, 2048, and 2050 are scheduled for waxing this week.  A reminder will be posted on the door of each room.  Please place all items from the floor on top of your desk.  The custodian crew thanks you for your cooperation.

1:5: The Refrigerator is now working properly.

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2.  TOURS/VISITORS

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2.1:  Monday & Tuesday, May 5&6, BRK Labs & CR PreGowning Area:  Film crew from the Big Ten Network filming for "Discovery with Delivery".

2.2:  Monday, May 5, 2008, 9:00:  Prof. Paul Greenfield, President of the University of Queensland

2.3:  Monday, May 5, 2008, 1:30:  Jasper Manufacturing Group.  Tour to begin in Burton Morgan and include Bindley Bioscience and Birck

2.4:  Thursday, May 8, 2008, lunchtime:  IEST visit; includes lunch and tour of Birck

2.5:  Thursday, May 8, 2008, 8:00:  Clarian Health Leadership Conference

2.6:  Friday, May 9, 2008, 8:00-4:00, BRK 1001:  Ali Shakouri, University of California, Santa Cruz

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3.  SEMINARS

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3.1:  Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 9:30, Pfendler Hall Auditorium:  “Self-Assembled Soft NanoMaterials from Sugar Surfactants,” by Dr. George John.

ABSTRACT: The self-assembly of low molecular weight building blocks into nanoscale molecular objects has recently attracted considerable interest in terms of the bottom-up fabrication of soft nanomaterials. The building blocks currently used in supramolecular chemistry are synthesized mainly from petroleum-based starting materials. However, biobased organic synthesis presents distinct advantages for the generation of new building blocks since they are obtainable from renewable resources. Our research efforts are deeply devoted towards developing building blocks from renewable resources to generate soft materials such as new surfactants, liquid crystals, lipid nanotubes and molecular gels. Present talk illustrates few successful examples of generating self-assembled soft materials from agri-sources, through simple organic transformations and by enzyme catalysis. To take these materials to the next level, we successfully showed the utility of these hydrogels as drug delivery vehicles. Enzyme catalysis was used as a tool to make and break the hydrogels, which apparently triggered controlled drug delivery. Intriguingly, by combining biocatalysis, with principles of green and supramolecular chemistry, we developed building blocks-to-assembled materials. Also address the advances that have led to the understanding of chiral behaviour and the subsequent ability to control the structure of glycolipid nanostructures-derived from renewable resources-and the resulting impact of this on future material applications. We foresee that these results will encourage interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists in the fields of organic synthesis, materials research, novel surfactants, green chemistry, drug discovery to design, and develop biobased functional materials from under-utilized plant/crop based feedstocks, as new forms of materials, and energy needs.

BIO: George John was born (1962) in Kerala, the southwest costal state of India. After obtaining his Ph.D. (1993) in Chemistry from Kerala University, India under the mentorship of Dr. C.K.S Pillai, Regional Research Laboratory, Trivandrum, he held a postdoctoral position (1994) at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. Subsequently, he was a research scientist at the Agency for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. In the fall of 2002 he joined the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center as a research faculty and pursued his research interests in the area of soft materials. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Chemistry, the City College of the City University of New York. His research interests are in the broad area of organic and macromolecular materials chemistry; specifically includes biobased organic synthesis, self-assembled soft nanomaterials for functional applications, green chemistry, understanding growth mechanisms of nanostructures and designing new structures and multifunctional nanocomposites.

3.2: Friday, May 9, 2008, 9:30-10:30, BRK 1001 Dr. Ali Shakouri Baskin School of Engineering Univ. of California Santa Cruz

We review solid-state devices that allow direct conversion of heat into electricity. We describe fundamental and practical limits of conventional thermoelectric materials. Novel metal-semiconductor nanocomposites are developed where the heat and charge transport are modified at the atomic level. Potential to reach high power densities and high conversion efficiencies will be discussed. We also describe how similar principles can be used to reduce heating in optoelectronic devices and make micro refrigerators on a chip in order to remove hot spots in integrated circuits.

Biography:
Ali Shakouri is professor of electrical engineering at University of California Santa Cruz. He received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 1995. His current research is on nanoscale heat and current transport in semiconductor devices, submicron thermal imaging, micro refrigerators on a chip and novel optoelectronic integrated circuits. He is the director of the Thermionic Energy Conversion center, a multi university research initiative aiming to improve direct thermal to electric energy conversion technologies. He received the Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering in 1999, the NSF CAREER award in 2000 and the UCSC School of Engineering FIRST Professor Award in 2004.

3.3:  June 11 and 12, 2008: 2008 Advanced Materials Characterization Workshop organized by the Center of Microanalysis of Materials (CMM) at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory (FS-MRL) on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus.  The two-day event features lectures given by our FS-MRL scientists who are experts in the mainstream analytical techniques that are important for both academic and industrial research work. Please see more detailed information in the attachment. The workshop will be held in the room ESB190 on June 11 and 12, 2008, from 9 AM to 5:30 PM.  Common analytical techniques such as x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Rutherford backscattering (RBS), etc., will be covered in individual lectures. Each lecture will have a strong focus on practical applications and problem solving strategies.  Our first workshop on this topic in May 2007 was attended by 200 participants who gave 99% positive feed back on the quality and usefulness of the lectures. This year’s workshop is an expanded two-day event with more detailed lectures, laboratory tours and demonstrations of the techniques.  The $ 25 registration fee will include two full days of lectures and tutorials, laboratory tours, instrument demonstrations and lunches for both days of the event. Registration forms are available online (see also attached). Attendees do not need to be a current user of the CMM or FS-MRL facilities to register. Registration deadline is June 2, 2008. Information and registration form can be found in:  http://cmm.mrl.uiuc.edu/Workshop2008/

3:4 Biofuels Symposium 2008 highlights sustainability, policy issues

You are cordially invited to attend the 2008 Biofuels Symposium hosted by the Energy Center at Discovery Park.  The two-day event begins at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, May 19th with a plenary speaker and discussions on ethanol and biodiesel followed by a poster session and dinner.  Tuesday, May 20th will include speakers on biofuels sustainability issues, policy perspective, and new frontiers in biofuels and bioenergy.   

Experts will discuss research advancements and the policy and sustainability issues facing the ethanol and biodiesel industries during Purdue University's Biofuels Symposium 2008 on May 19-20.

Speakers at the two-day event led by the Energy Center in Discovery Park will include top executives from the biofuels industry, government officials and leading academic researchers from Princeton and Purdue universities and the University of Massachusetts. Symposium events will be held in third-floor meeting rooms in Stewart Center.  

 Keynote speaker Jim Fischer, senior scientific advisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Research Education, and Economics Mission Area, will kick off the event with his presentation, "Biofuels Research and Development Strategic Plan," at 1:15 p.m. May 19 in Stewart Center, Room 218.  

 Sessions on day one will continue through 5 p.m., and a poster session also is planned that day. The morning session May 20 carries the theme biofuel economic and policy issues, while the afternoon will focus on the new frontiers in biofuels and bioenergy for the bio-economy. 

 For the two-day schedule of the event sponsored by Discovery Park's Energy Center, go to: http://www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/2008biofuels/program%20agenda.php. 

A PDF version of a detailed agenda also can be downloaded at: http://www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/pdfs/bio_detailed_agenda_08.pdf.  

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4.  OPPORTUNITIES

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4.1:  RE:  Department of Energy’s Engineering Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) competition:  The Funding Opportunity Announcement may be found at https://e-center.doe.gov/iips/faopor.nsf/UNID/933104E42D0185E58525742100694C78/$file/EFRC_FOA_Final_Dated_April42008_FINAL.pdf.

Purdue may submit three proposals for this competition.  Because of the need for expediency, letters of intent were dropped from this competition.  Remaining important dates are: Friday, May 2:  Preproposals due to the OVPR; Thursday, May 8:  Limited submission review committee meets to select Purdue’s proposals. Please note: Preproposals to the OVPR should be e-mailed to OVPRlimited@purdue.edu.  Purdue's limited submission policy, as well as the template for the preproposal, may be found at http://dagon.admin.purdue.edu/cgi-bin/lsid.cgi.

4.2:  Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Accepting Proposals for Innovation Award; Deadline: June 2, 2008 (Pre-proposals) Sept. 18 (full proposals); Info at: http://216.235.201.218/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=259#selection.  A program of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award is designed to provide support for the next generation of exceptionally creative thinkers with "high risk/high reward"  ideas that have the potential to significantly impact the understanding of and/or approaches to the prevention, diagnosis, or  treatment of cancer. The award is specifically designed to provide funding for extraordinary early career researchers who have an innovative new idea but lack sufficient preliminary data to obtain traditional funding. It is not designed to fund incremental advances. The research supported by the award must be novel, exceptionally creative, and, if successful, have the strong potential for high impact in the cancer field. Applicants (including non-U.S. citizens) must be conducting independent research at a U.S. research institution. Basic and translational/clinical projects will be considered. Applications will be accepted from all scientific disciplines provided that the proposed research meets the selection criteria. Applicants with a background in multiple disciplines are especially encouraged to apply. Applicants must belong to one of the following categories: 1) Tenure-track Assistant Professors within the first three years of obtaining their initial Assistant Professor position (cutoff date is 1 June 2005); 2) Clinical Instructors and Senior Clinical Fellows (with an M.D.) who are pursuing a period of independent research before taking a faculty position; 3) Postdoctoral Fellows and highly motivated recent Ph.D. and M.D. graduates who are pursuing a period of independent research before taking a faculty position.  The program awards between three and five new grants each year, with each recipient receiving $450,000 over three years.

4:3 GRC Call for White Papers in Modeling & Simulation of Nanoelectronic Materials, Processes, and Devices  - Deadline June 16, 2008

The Device Sciences area of the Semiconductor Research Corporation Global Research Collaboration is soliciting white papers in Modeling & Simulation of Nanoelectronic Materials, Processes, and Devices.  Two page white papers addressing needs in a new research needs document are due Monday, JUNE 16, 2008 at 3 PM ET/12 PM PT.  A limited number of full proposals will be accepted based on the white paper submissions and a subset of these proposals will be selected for anticipated three-year contracts beginning January 1, 2009.  Interested researchers should note the proposal and review schedule, needs document, and instructions for web-based white paper submissions on the SRC GRC Web site at:

http://grc.src.org/fr/S200803_Call.asp