Laser cutting techniques are usually powered by high energy beams, so hot that they melt most materials. Now scientists from McGill University have developed a gentler, more precise technique using low-power visible light.
Each mistletoe berry can produce up to two metres of a gluey thread called viscin. It allows the seeds of this parasitic plant to stick to and infect host plants. Since ancient times, mistletoe berries have been explored as treatments for everything from infertility and epilepsy to cancer. But, until now, no one has fully investigated the potential medical or technical uses of the glue itself.
2021 marked McGill’s bicentennial and the department produced a Special Issue in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry to celebrate this important hallmark and provide an overview of the breath of research produced by our community. This special occasion also was a good time to reflect on our recent past, and this the Special issue includes an overview of the Department’s history from 1965-2019. The contributions to the Special Issue came from lead authors, who were former Ph.D. students or past and present faculty members.
Founding members of the award-winning McGill Chemistry Outreach program have documented the inception and work of the group in Beyond exploding balloons- bringing the science of chemistry to the public, a new piece in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry.
Thermoelectrics can generate electrical power from waste heat and could make an important contribution to sustainable energy production if their efficiency is improved. Engineering efficient thermoelectrics, however, requires a sophisticated understanding of the fundamental interdependencies between electrical and thermal transport, for which improvements in our understanding of how charge carriers are coupled to lattice vibrations (phonons) is needed.
With heavy hearts, we announce that Professor Emeritus Adi Eisenberg (1935-2022) has passed away on January 12, 2022. A Holocaust survivor, Dr. Eisenberg has earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1960, worked as a NATO post-doctoral fellow at the University of Basel with Werner Kuhn (1961-1962), and joined UCLA in 1962 as an Assistant Professor. He moved to McGill as an Associate Professor in 1967, where he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor in 1975 and was named Otto Maass Chair in 1992.
Graduate student Houjie Li and Professor Parisa Ariya discovered that the concentrations of black carbon (BC), PM2.5, CO, NOx decreased up to 72% in downtown Montreal during COVID-19 lockdown period, revealing those human activities account for most air pollutants in the cities.
Recognized for her ground-breaking advancements in the field of DNA nanotechnology and precision medicine to combat major diseases
Hanadi Sleiman, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in DNA Nanoscience, has transformed the field of DNA nanotechnology and revolutionized precise medical treatments for major diseases, like cancer – and she has just earned national recognition for her research.
Hassan Fakih who is a PhD Candidate in the Sleiman Lab has been awarded the 2021 Dr. Alan M. Gewirtz Memorial Scholarship.
To read more, please visit: https://www.oligotherapeutics.org/2021-dr-alan-m-gewirtz-memorial-scholarship-award-for-graduate-students/.
The mussels’ beards (which cooks remove before preparing them) are made up of byssal threads and are used to help keep the mussels tethered in place. At the end of each thread is a disc-shaped plaque that acts as an underwater glue. The unusual qualities of the glue and the byssal threads have interested people since ancient times, when the threads of certain species were woven into luxurious berets, purses, gloves, and stockings. More recently, scientists have developed underwater adhesives and surgical glues inspired by byssal thread chemistry.
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Dan Petrescu on Sunday, October 3rd, 2021. Dan was born in 1991 in Germany but raised in France. He left Europe for the United States in 2009 to pursue his education. Dan studied for his B.A. in Chemistry from 2009-2013 at Boston University. He then went on to obtain his M.A in Physical and Biophysical Chemistry at Boston University from 2013-2015. From 2015 on, he was a PhD candidate under the supervision of Professors Amy Blum and Mark Andrews at the Department of Chemistry, McGill University.
Part 2: Considerations for Online Course Delivery
By Hilary Sweatman, Jacqueline Kort Mascort, Véronique Brulé, Jennie Ferris
The department of chemistry is really proud of graduate students Zi Wang, from the Ariya group, and Kayrel Edwards, from the Barrett group, for being award two first place award for the oral presentations they delivered at the virtual #IUPCA/CCCE conference on August.
Milton Riaño, McGill’s Climate Change Artist-in-Residence, will curate the Faculty of Science’s Bicentennial Science/Art Exposition, billed as a “celebration of science in all its forms”.
The art show organizers are calling on all members of the McGill community to submit works in any medium, expressing what science means to them.
The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2021.
A graduate of McGill and Cambridge, Dr. Goring has passed away at the age of 100. Dr. Goring joined Paprican Institute in 1955, with his labs on the third floor of the Pulp and Paper building. Through his affiliation with the Chemistry Department, he taught graduate courses and supervised approximately 20 graduate students, most of whom went on to research positions in the Canadian Pulp and Paper Industry. Dr. Goring’s ground breaking work on how wood components are modified by chemical pulping has been of great importance to the pulp and paper industry.
