Week of November 4Week of November 11Week of November 18Week of November 25

Additive Manufacturing and Design Graduate Programs

Xiangjia (Cindy) Li

Wednesday, November 6, 2024; Noon - 1:00 p.m. ET
via Zoom
Speaker: Xiangjia (Cindy) Li from Arizona State University

Hosted by: Jaclyn Stimely,  juc52@psu.edu

Chemical Engineering

Discovery and Engineering of Small Molecule Biosynthetic Pathways

Thursday, November 7, 2024; 10:35a - 11:35am
CBEB 001
Speaker: Dr. Yi Tang from University of California - UCLA

ABSTRACT

Nature performs challenging synthetic transformations using powerful enzymes.  These enzymes are frequently found in the biosynthetic pathways of natural products, many of which have served as inspirations for generations of synthetic chemists over the last fifty years. With recent advances in our abilities to manipulate the biosynthetic pathways, many powerful enzymes in novel natural product biosynthetic pathways have been revealed and characterized.  In this talk, I will present a selection of recent work in the identification, characterization, and engineering of biosynthetic pathways.  I will present the use of different genome mining approaches to identify novel natural product scaffolds and biological activities, as well as metabolic engineering of yeast to produce high value compounds.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Yi Tang received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Material Science from Penn State University.  He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from California Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. David A. Tirrell.  After NIH postdoctoral training in Chemical Biology from Prof. Chaitan Khosla at Stanford University, he started his independent career at University of California Los Angeles in 2004.  He is currently the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Chair in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA, and holds joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; and Department of Bioengineering.  His awards include the ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2012), the EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2012), NIH DP1 Director Pioneer Award (2012), the ACS Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry (2014) and the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology Charles Thom Award (2019).  He coauthored several books with Prof. Christopher Walsh, including “Natural Product Biosynthesis, Chemical Logic and Enzymatic Machinery” of which 2nd edition is now available.

Hosted by: Angela Dixon,  adc12@psu.edu

Nuclear Engineering

Inertial Confinement Fusion - The NNSA Perspective

Thursday, November 7, 2024; 4:00PM
Nuclear Innovation Commons, Hallowell Bldg
Speaker: Michael Sheehy from NNSA

BIOGRAPHY

Mike Sheehy completed his undergraduate studies in Structural Engineering at the University of Maryland with a minor in Nuclear Engineering.  He then commission as an officer in the US Army.  After serving five years, he left as a Captain and worked as a structural engineer for the Department of Veterans Affairs.  While working, he completed his Masters of Nuclear Engineering at Penn State.  Mike started at the NNSA as a federal program manager overseeing the Z-Pulsed Power Facility at Sandia National Laboratories.  Mike now works on the Inertial Confinement Fusion team at the NNSA sponsoring cutting edge fusion research.

 

ABSTRACT

NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy Responsible fore enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science.  NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile; works to reduce the global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and militarily effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the United States and abroad.  With a focus on cutting edge research at the national laboratories, and with historic breakthroughs such as achieving fusion ignition, NNSA is at the forefront of scientific discovery.

Hosted by: Jesse Torba,  jjt5008@psu.edu