In the News

Zhining Sun photo

Sun Receives Paul Hatheway Terry Scholarship

Zhining (Jennings) Sun received Paul Hatheway Terry Scholarship in recognition of excellence in research. Research Summary: Genetically encodable RNA-based fluorescent sensors have been a revolutionary tool for real-time imaging of important biological small molecules in live cells. Guanosine tetraphosphate (also known as ppGpp or “Magic Spot”) in particular is one of the targets that plays an integral role in cell regulation. Its presence in bacteria cells triggers the stringent response which helps the cells to survive the harsh living conditions via various pathways. Although many researches have been done to study its functions, people still have not been able to fully understand it due to the lack of tools to monitor it in live cells. I engineered a naturally occurring ppGpp riboswitch into an RNA-based fluorescent sensor and achieved imaging of ppGpp in live E. coli cells. After half a century since its discovery, we are the first group to ever visualize ppGpp and provide information on its cellular dynamics and cell-to-cell variations. Now I’m working on the multiplex imaging project to study ppGpp and other related targets simultaneously, which will discover the potential correlation between the targets as well as how they affect the cell biology.

Zhou Lin photo

Lin Receives Scialog Award

Zhou Lin, assistant professor in chemistry, and her co-authors received the (“science + dialog") Scialog Award for their proposal to develop a new electrosynthetic route that reduces the emissions of two most significant greenhouse gases from waste management and treatment activities, carbon dioxide, and methane. The $55,000 grant will help the team design unconventional electrochemical reactors and catalysts to enable direct coupling of carbon dioxide and methane into valuable liquid feedstock.

Jianhan Chen

Jianhan Chen Receives $2 Million NIH MIRA Grant

Jianhan Chen, a University of Massachusetts Amherst chemistry and biochemistry and molecular biology professor, has received a five-year, $2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to support research in his computational biophysics lab aimed at better understanding the role of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) in biology and human disease.

The grant falls under the National Institute of General Medical Sciences MIRA program, which stands for Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award. It’s designed to give highly talented researchers more flexibility and stability to achieve important scientific advances in their labs.

“The MIRA award enables us to continue working on several central problems regarding the study of disordered proteins and dynamic interactions. The flexibility of this funding mechanism also allows us to follow new research directions as they emerge,” Chen says.

Until relatively recently, it was thought that proteins needed to adopt a well-defined structure to perform their biological function. But about two decades ago, Chen explains, IDPs were recognized as a new class of proteins that rely on a lack of stable structures to function. They make up about one-third of proteins that human bodies make, Chen explains, and two-thirds of cancer-associated proteins contain large, disordered segments or domains.

“This disorder seems to provide some unique functional advantage, and that’s why we have so much disorder in certain kinds of proteins,” Chen says. “These IDPs play really important roles in biology, and when something breaks down, they lead to very serious diseases, like cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.”

In his lab, Chen and colleagues focus on using computer simulations to model the molecular structure and dynamics of proteins. “IDPs are a mess; it’s difficult to determine the details of their properties because they are not amenable to traditional techniques that are designed to resolve stable protein structures,” he says.

Because of their chaotic state, IDPs must be described using ensembles of structures, and computer simulations play a crucial role in the quantitative description of these disordered ensembles. “Our goal is really trying to combine simulation and experiments in collaboration with other labs to tease out what are the hidden features of these disordered proteins that are crucial to their function,” Chen says. “Then we can look at how these specific features might be perturbed by disease-related mutations or conditions.”

The next step would be to develop effective strategies for targeting disordered protein states. Toward that end, Chen’s lab will study the molecular basis of how the anti-cancer drug EGCG, an antioxidant found in green tea extract, and their derivatives interact with the p53 gene, a tumor suppressor and the most important protein involved in cancer.

The key, he says, is knowing how to design drug molecules to bind well enough to IDPs to achieve a therapeutic effect. Traditional, structure-based drug design strategies are faced with significant challenges, Chen says, because IDPs do not contain stable, “druggable” pockets.

“We believe that targeting IDPs requires new strategies that explore the dynamic nature of IDP interactions,” Chen says. “If we can do this, it could really open up a whole class of drugs that were previously thought impossible.”

Photo of Craing Martin

Martin to Join International Team Looking to Revolutionize mRNA Vaccines and Therapeutics

Craig Martin, professor of chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will lead a UMass team that will spend the next three years developing a process that can deliver the quantity and quality of messenger RNA (mRNA) demanded by a new class of medicines, including the COVID vaccines, faster, cheaper and more effectively than any other method. Martin and his colleagues will be joining Wellcome’s R3 program, which seeks to create a global network of “biofoundaries” capable of producing high quality, low-cost mRNA, increasing global access to these new therapies, wherever they’re needed.

Martin whose co-principal investigators include Sarah Perry and Shelly Peyton, both professors of chemical engineering at UMass Amherst, is at the cutting edge of a new approach to medicine. Traditionally, illnesses have been cured by medicines that come from outside the human body: herbs, chemicals and vaccines. Recently, there’s been a new approach, using biologics, or therapies that delivers missing proteins to the human body and which can be used to treat a very wide range of illnesses that result from missing or damaged cell proteins.

But, says, Martin, this process can be taken one step further. “Instead of making the protein in some other organism and delivering it to humans,” he says, “we can make the RNA that encodes the protein, deliver that RNA as the biologic, and the patient’s own cells then make that protein from the delivered RNA.” The result is that, when the body makes the protein itself, “everything gets done correctly.” Furthermore, says Martin, “once you know how to make the RNA for one disease, it’s comparatively easy to swap in a different RNA so it can treat another disease. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, saving money, and, crucially, saving time.”

If RNA therapies have not yet reached their full potential, it’s because making RNA that is pure enough, in great enough quantities, has proved very difficult—and the purity is of utmost importance. Impure RNA looks, to the body’s immune system like an invader and triggers an immune response. “This is actually ok for vaccines,” says Martin, “because what vaccines do is train the body’s immune system to recognize disease."

For certain diseases, though, especially those that are caused by genetic deficiencies, and for which the immune system plays no role, purity is important. Take cystic fibrosis, for example. Impure RNA would cause swelling in the lungs, making it even harder for a patient to breathe—a potentially deadly complication. Many cancers, too, are the result of genetic malfunctions, and could be treated with RNA therapies.

Martin, whose lab has been studying RNA for more than 30 years, has developed an approach to making RNA that employs a “flow reactor.” This method results in much larger quantities of much purer RNA. It is also scalable and can provide small amounts of RNA that could, for instance, address a particular person’s cancer, as well as the enormous amounts needed for something like a COVID vaccine.

While the Martin and Perry labs have already developed an initial smaller-scale version of their process, Perry and Peyton will help refine the process and be responsible for helping to scale the initial to industrial uses. “The microfluidic aspects of this technology rely critically on their small size,” Perry says. “Therefore, we will not ‘scale up’ so much as ‘scale out,’ creating many parallel reactors that can operate simultaneously to produce sufficient product for commercial use.” This scaling out, says Peyton, relies on a series of porous scaffolds, which Perry will engineer. Peyton will incorporate these porous scaffolds into the reactors. “Without both,” she says, “such an ambitious goal of continuous production of long mRNAs would not be possible.”

The work is part of the larger Wellcome Foundation’s Leap Health Breakthrough Network, a web of more than 70 world-class institutions, non-profits and commercial entities representing a network of over 650,000 scientists and engineers across six continents and is supported by a major grant. Early support for this work was provided by UMass Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS), which combines deep and interdisciplinary expertise from 29 departments on the UMass Amherst campus to translate fundamental research into innovations that benefit human health and well-being.

Enes Buz photo

Buz Awarded a PPG Fellowship

Enes Buz (Kittlestved Group) Awarded a PPG Fellowship Award for outstanding research in the area of materials chemistry. Research summary: Transition-metal doped metal oxide semiconductors, in particular Zn1-xMxO, have attracted tremendous interest as potential candidates not only for the semiconductor-compatible magnetic components for spintronic applications but also room-temperature magnetism. While ZnO is a diamagnetic semiconductor, introduction of magnetic dopants such as Fe imparts magnetism on ZnO. In the Kittilstved research group, I study on different methods to tune the oxidation state of Fe dopants in ZnO nanocrystals (NCs) in a controlled way which will allow us to control the properties of ZnO NCs in turn. With the support of the PPG fellowship, I will be furthering my studies to investigate and directly show the specific oxidation state of Fe in ZnO NCs by utilizing various dopant-specific spectroscopic techniques. This study will help us to shed light on the mechanism of magnetism in ZnO NCs and to develop materials of interest for magnetism-related applications.

Tongkun Wang

Wang Awarded PPG Fellowship

Tongkun Wang (Auerbach Group) Awarded a PPG Fellowship Award for outstanding research in the area of materials chemistry. Research summary: People in Prof. Scott Auerbach’s group focus on the study of zeolites, which are atomic crystals formed by tetrahedral atoms like Si with bridging atoms like O. As noticeable members of molecular sieves, zeolites have interesting porous structures and channels. To better understand their formation mechanism, we performed periodic density functional theory simulations and probed key precursors. Combined with experimental results from our collaborators, we successfully used Raman spectroscopy and thermodynamics calculations to reveal defects and explained why or why not they can be healed with the presence of organic structure directing agents. In future works, I will extend my ab initio molecular dynamics simulations in aqueous environment and study processes from monomers, via important building units, to full crystalline, which will help us to predict and design the synthesis for zeolites we want.

Gus and Beverly Silveira

Lecture Hall Named After Alumnus Augustine "Gus" Silveira

Prof. Craig Martin

Martin Wins Innovation Award

The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) has announced that six campus research teams have been named recipients of the 3rd annual Manning/IALS Innovation Awards. These translational grants are designed to advance applied research and development efforts from UMass-based faculty research groups in the sciences and engineering through the development of spin-out/startup companies and the out-licensing of UMass intellectual property.

Alumnus Paul Manning and his wife, Diane, committed $1 million through their family foundation to establish the Manning Innovation Program. The gift provides three years of support in advancing a robust and sustainable commercialization pipeline of applied and translational research projects from UMass Amherst. 

Peter Reinhart, founding director of IALS, says, “We are grateful to the Manning Family Foundation and Paul Manning for their support of this exciting translational initiative. This seed fund program enables UMass Amherst start-up companies to traverse the funding ‘valley of death’ towards success.”

Six projects were selected from a highly competitive group of applicants. Each successful team will receive seed funding of up to $100,000 over 12 to 18 months towards achieving translational milestones. In addition, a collaborative effort from IALS, the College of Natural Sciences, the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship and the Isenberg School of Management will provide support for commercialization efforts, including business training and mentorship resources.

The winning team leaders and their projects are:

  • RNA4Therapeutics: Craig Martin, chemistry. A novel manufacturing technology for the synthesis of high purity, low-cost, and large scale RNA manufacturing for therapeutic use.
     
  • E2-PATH: Karen Dunphy/Joe Jerry, veterinary & animal sciences. A diagnostic personalized medicine screening platform for selecting optimized breast cancer treatments.
     
  • OPG Wastewater Treatment: Chul Park, civil & environmental engineering. Developing technology that enables aeration-free and energy efficient wastewater treatment.
     
  • Optical Waters: Mariana Lopes, civil & environmental engineering. Germicidal optical fibers to prevent disease causing biofilms in medical devices.
     
  • 3Daughters: Carlos Gradil, veterinary & animal sciences. A women’s healthcare startup developing a new ergonomic, pain-free, magnetic intrauterine device (IUD).
     
  • Volvox Sciences: Ashish Kulkarni, chemical engineering. Developing a novel supramolecular nano-therapeutic (CSF-SNT) that can efficiently remove cancer tumor cells.

The award process brought together on-campus and off-campus reviewers of these applications. The reviewers bring diverse perspectives with science, engineering, nursing, public health and health sciences, and data/computer science expertise and were supplemented by industry/start-up and IP expertise. The project was supported by Manning-IALS Summer Business Innovation Fellows.

“The Manning Innovation Awards are the perfect catalyst for forging collaborative effort across campus disciplines in support of moving ground-breaking science from our labs to our community,” says Tricia Serio, dean of the College of Natural Sciences and associate chancellor for strategic academic planning. “This investment again supports UMass as a partner of choice in advancing and generating new knowledge, leading to the betterment of society.”

“At UMass, we are dedicated to finding solutions to real-world problems that impact society and our planet,” says Sanjay Raman, dean of the College of Engineering. “The Manning/IALS innovation awards represent a vital investment in taking science and engineering discoveries from lab to market. We are incredibly proud of this year’s winners and are looking forward to seeing these exciting projects move forward on the path to commercialization.”

Paul Manning, a 1977 graduate of UMass Amherst, is an entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry, who most recently founded PBM Capital Group in 2010. It is a healthcare-focused private investment group that looks for opportunities to use its entrepreneurial and operational experience to make high-growth pharmaceutical, molecular diagnostic, gene therapy, life science, health/wellness and consumer product investments.

Manning was also the anchor investor in Maroon Venture Partners, the first venture-capital fund at UMass Amherst. Created in 2017, the fund is a $6 million for-profit investment vehicle created to support alumni, faculty, and student businesses in their early stages. 

IALS was established in 2014, supported by a total investment of more than $150 million from the Massachusetts Life Science Center and the campus. The Manning-IALS partnership has enabled a total of 18 UMass-based translational projects since 2019.

Michael Lu-Diaz

Lu-Diaz Awarded Donald Kuhn Graduate Fellowship

Michael Lu-Diaz (DV group) Awarded the Donald Kuhn Graduate Fellowship for outstanding reseaarch, and an interest in pursuing a career in research or teaching.

Research Summary: Chemically doped conjugated polymers comprise a myriad of applications among organic electronics. The chemical doping process consists of introducing a molecule to partially oxidize or reduce a polymer's backbone and create a charge. Although this charge is presumed to be mobile, it experiences a strong, attractive Coulomb interaction with a dopant, ultimately affecting charge transport. I am studying methods to screen this Coulomb interaction and help this charge move. Our experiments and models indicate that the dielectric permittivity is a tunable and crucial parameter to reduce polymer-dopant Coulomb interactions. We used a charge hopping model and fabricated polymer composites with nanocrystals with tunable dielectric permittivity. Ongoing studies focus on understanding how different physical properties of a polymer impact polymer-dopant Coulomb interactions to create more efficient materials.

Xianzhi Zhang

Zhang Awarded Marvin D. Rausch Fellowship

Xianzhi Zhang (Rotello Group) Awarded the Marvin D. Rausch Fellowship for outstanding research in the area of organic or inorganic chemistry.

Research Summary: Bioorthogonal chemistry uses abiotic chemical processes to create a new toolkit for biological and biomedical applications. Bioorthogonal catalysis via transition metal catalysts (TMCs) provides a particularly promising direction that employs the high catalytic activity and chemical specificity inherent in TMCs. The direct application of TMCs in living cells is challenging due to the generally poor water solubility and instability of these hydrophobic catalysts in biological environments. In the Rotello lab, these issues can be addressed by incorporating TMCs into nanomaterials to generate bioorthogonal “nanozymes”. Nanozymes can activate imaging and therapeutic agents from their inactive precursors, creating on-demand “drug factories”. By engineering surface functionality and size of nanomaterials, I synthesized various nanozymes with biostability and/or stimuli responsiveness. Furthermore, I also designed and synthesized a library of substrates for nanozymes to broaden their applications for bioimaging, cancer chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The therapeutic potential of nanozymes was demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo, creating an anti-cancer treatment with increased efficacy and reduced side effects.

Pages