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2022 Scas Annual Meeting Program And Bulletin

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Environmental Bacteriophage Detection On Coastal Carolina University Campus, Madison Gentilo, Hailey Oldfield, Gavin Ockert, Paul E. Richardson

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. These viruses are found ubiquitously in the environment and are more abundant than any living organism on Earth, including bacteria. Eleven sites are designated for weekly sample collection on the campus of Coastal Carolina University. Water samples are filtered and amplified using strains of E. coli B and E. coli K12 to allow potential coliphages in the sample to proliferate to detectable levels. Plaque assays are used as a microbial screen for the presence of bacteriophage. Samples that test positively using the microbial test are analyzed through a molecular test using PCR to identify …

3,6-Dimethoxyxanthone From 2,2’,4,4’- Tetrahydroxy-Benzophenone Via Microwave-Assisted Annulation, Sarah E. Knisely, Faith R. Rosario, Salem F. Gebeyehu, Paige E. Heiple, Robert E. Lee Sr

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Xanthones are tricyclic aromatic compounds that have multiple pharmacological uses due to their anti-tumor, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and potentially chemopreventive properties. The target of this research was to optimize a two-step synthesis of 3,6-dimethoxyxanthone (3) from 2,2’,4,4’-tetrahydroxy-benzophenone (1) via microwave-assisted (200 °C, 30-40 min., 150 W) sodium acetate-catalyzed annulation. The product, 3,6-dihydroxyxanthone (2), was then methylated to (3) using dimethyl sulfate (DMS) and sodium carbonate in acetone at reflux. The product yields were 93% (>99% purity) for (2) and 94% (>99% purity) for (3). Characterization was accomplished using ¹H NMR, FTIR, melting point, TLC, HPLC, and GCMS. …

The Effects Of Human Behavioral Changes Due To The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Reservoir Of Lytic Escherichia Coli And Staphylococcus Aureus Bacteriophage On Humans At A South Carolina University, Korinne M. Swanson, Owen R. Smith, Paul E. Richardson

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Bacteriophages are viruses, whose unique ability to infect and lyse bacterial cells may provide valuable insight for evading the repercussions of a post-antibiotic era in medicine. This study isolated and characterized Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacteriophage on students and faculty at Coastal Carolina University as a means to understand the viability of human bacteriophage reservoirs for bacteriophage therapy. From September 2021 to March 2022, nasal and postauricular swab samples and a behavioral survey were collected from ninety-three randomly selected participants. Additionally, sixteen participants contributed nasal and postauricular swab samples and a behavioral survey on a monthly basis in a …

Direct Measurement Of Stokes–Einstein Diffusion Of Cowpea Mosaic Virus With 19 Μs-Resolved Xpcs, Kacper Switalski, Jingyu Fang, Luxi Li, Miaoqi Chu, Erik Sarnello, Pete Jemian, Tao Li, Qian Wang, Qingteng Zhang

Faculty Publications

Brownian motion of Cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV) in water was measured using small-angle X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (SA-XPCS) at 19.2 mu s time resolution. It was found that the decorrelation time tau(Q) = 1/DQ(2) up to Q = 0.091 nm(-1). The hydrodynamic radius R-H determined from XPCS using Stokes-Einstein diffusion D = kT/(6 pi eta R-H) is 43% larger than the geometric radius R-0 determined from SAXS in the 0.007 M K3PO4 buffer solution, whereas it is 80% larger for CPMV in 0.5 M NaCl and 104% larger in 0.5 M (NH4)(2)SO4, a possible effect of aggregation as well as …

Self-Assembling Porous Supramolecular Networks Capable Of Post-Synthetic Modification With A New Approach To Reticular Design With Semiconductor Potential, Steven A. Sloope

Theses and Dissertations

In past decades, research in self-assembling supramolecular frameworks have been produced with vast surface area, inherent from their porous nature. Predesigning monomers in a reticular manner allows a framework’s structure to be known before self-assembly occurs. This is very helpful since high porosity is sought after for many purposes such as hosting guests within the framework, post-synthetic modifications, sensing and detection, selective catalysis, semiconduction, etc. Methods of design usually focus on forming intrinsic porosity and unfortunately, sometimes the network formed is not as expected and porosity is lost.

In Chapter 1, we discuss novel ways of network formation, their potential …

Deciphering The Molecular Circuitry That Controls Iron Regulation In Non-Pathogenic Yeast, Debolina Hati

Theses and Dissertations

The trace metal iron is essential for the survival of almost all living organisms. It is a co-factor for many proteins involved in a variety of vital functions such as respiration, nitrogen fixation, and DNA biosynthesis, to name a few. Iron homeostasis in non-pathogenic fungi such as Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been extensively studied over the past few decades to better understand how intracellular iron is regulated under different environmental conditions. Iron regulation in S. pombe is controlled by two Fe-responsive transcriptional repressors known as Php4 and Fep1. Both rely on iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters as signals to balance iron acquisition, storage, …

Characterization Of The Interaction Between Grx4-Bol2 And The Iron-Responsive Transcription Factor Aft1 In Candida Glabrata, Evan A. Talib

Theses and Dissertations

Iron is an indispensable protein cofactor that plays a critical role in biological functions such as cellular respiration. However, excess iron causes cellular damage via the generation of reactive oxygen species. To obtain optimal intracellular iron levels, eukaryotic cells have developed mechanisms to tightly regulate iron levels. The molecular mechanism for iron regulation in the pathogenic yeast Candida glabrata has not yet been explored, although this yeast bears iron regulation pathways that are very similar to the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Understanding how C. glabrata regulates iron levels is critical for the treatment of infections caused by this opportunistic …

Mechanistic Insights Into An Iron-Responsive Repressor, Fep1, From Schizosaccharomyces Pombe, Allison Nicole Kimsey

Theses and Dissertations

Iron is an essential metal cofactor required for a variety of biochemical pathways in most living organisms. In recent years, the nonpathogenic fungi Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been used to study iron regulation and uncover the molecular mechanisms for controlling intracellular iron levels. Some of these regulation pathways are conserved with those of pathogenic fungi, making these studies applicable for the future development of antifungals that target iron homeostasis. In S. pombe, the GATA-type transcriptional repressor Fep1 is responsible for repressing iron uptake genes during times of iron abundance. Previous reports have proposed that the binding of an iron-sulfur (Fe-S) …

The Optimization Of Anion Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells And Water Electrolyzers By Varying Catalyst Design And Changing Gas Inlet Composition, Jasmine D. Bohannon

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers around the globe are looking to avoid the consequences of climate change by shifting away from the burning of fossil fuels as a source of energy. While using fossil fuels have negatively affected the earth’s climate for at least the last hundred and fifty years, the introduction of renewables looks to use abundant and naturally occurring resources. Sources of renewable energy include solar power, wind power, hydropower, geothermal energy, and biomass2 . These sources work by converting the abundant source into mechanical, electrical, or chemical energy that can be used to power industrial plants or residential areas and they …

Compositionally And Density Stratified Igneous Terrain In Jezero Crater, Mars, Roger C. Wiens, Arya Udry, Olivier Beyssac, Cathy Quantin-Nataf, Nicolas Mangold, Agnès Cousin, Lucia Mandon, Tanja Bosak, Olivier Forni, Scott M. Mclennan, Violaine Sautter, Adrian Cousin, Karim Benzerara, Jeffrey R. Johnson, Lisa Mayhew, Sylvestre Maurice, Ryan B. Maurice, Ryan B. Anderson, Samuel M. Clegg, Larry Crumpler, Stanley M. Angel

Faculty Publications

Before Perseverance, Jezero crater's floor was variably hypothesized to have a lacustrine, lava, volcanic airfall, or aeolian origin. SuperCam observations in the first 286 Mars days on Mars revealed a volcanic and intrusive terrain with compositional and density stratification.The dominant lithology along the traverse is basaltic, with plagioclase enrichment in stratigraphically higher locations. Stratigraphically lower, layered rocks are richer in normative pyroxene. The lowest observed unit has the highest inferred density and is olivine-rich with coarse (1.5 millimeters) euhedral, relatively unweathered grains, suggesting a cumulate origin. This is the first martian cumulate and shows similarities to martian meteorites, which also …

Invited Perspective: Existing Rules For Disinfection By-Products Are Good, But They Are Not Enough, Susan D. Richardson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Author Correction: In Situ Recording Of Mars Soundscape (Nature, (2022), 605, 7911, (653-658), 10.1038/S41586-022-04679-0), S. Maurice, B. Chide, N. Murdoch, R. D. Lorenz, D. Mimoun, R. C. Wiens, A. Stott, X. Jacob, T. Bertrand, F. Montmessin, N. L. Lanza, C. Alvarez-Llamas, S. M. Angel Ph.D., M. Aung, J. Balaram, O. Beyssac, A. Cousin, G. Delory, O. Forni, T. Fouchet, O. Gasnault, H. Grip, M. Hecht, J. Hoffman, J. Laserna, J. Lasue, J. Maki, J. Mcclean, P. Y. Meslin, S. Le Mouélic, S. Le Mouélic, A. Munguira

Faculty Publications

In the version of this article initially published, the Acknowledgements statement was missing the text “Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004),” which has now been inserted in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

Structure-Property Investigations In Urea Tethered Iodinated Triphenylamines, Muhammad Saddam Hossain, Fiaz Ahmed, Stavros G. Karakalos, Mark D. Smith, Namrata Pant, Sophya V. Garashchuk, Andrew B, Greytak, Pablo Docampo, Linda S. Shimizu

Faculty Publications

Herein, we report structural, computational, and conductivity studies on urea-directed self-assembled iodinated triphenylamine (TPA) derivatives. Despite numerous reports of conductive TPAs, the challenges of correlating their solid-state assembly with charge transport properties hinder the efficient design of new materials. In this work, we compare the assembled structures of a methylene urea bridged dimer of di-iodo TPA (1) and the corresponding methylene urea di-iodo TPA monomer (2) with a di-iodo mono aldehyde (3) control. These modifications lead to needle shaped crystals for 1 and 2 that are organized by urea hydrogen bonding, π⋯π stacking, I⋯I, and I⋯π interactions as determined by …

Disinfection Byproducts In Wastewater, Swimming Pools, And Tea: Identification, Quantification, And Drivers Of Toxicity, Caroline O. Granger

Theses and Dissertations

Drinking water disinfection is considered one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th Century because it significantly reduced the number of deaths related to waterborne diseases. However, in 1974 J.J. Rook discovered that chlorine, a commonly used disinfectant, can react with natural organic matter to form disinfection byproducts (DBPs). Since then, more than 700 DBPs have been identified, with several epidemiological and toxicological studies linking DBPs to several adverse health effects such as bladder and colorectal cancer, adverse birth outcomes, and asthma. Due to their ubiquity in disinfected water and their adverse health effects, studying the formation and identifying …

Mass Spectrometric Investigation Of Removal/Transformation Of Emerging Contaminants For Safer Potable Wastewater Reuse, Kristin Cochran

Theses and Dissertations

Water scarcity is of increasing global concern as rising demand depletes current sources, so other sources such as potable wastewater reuse are being utilized. Advanced wastewater reuse removes pathogens and many contaminants, but there are concerns about resistant contaminants and the transformation products that are generated during the treatment process. This research focuses on several different contaminant classes, how well they are removed via advanced treatment processes, what transformation products arise from both advanced treatment and chlorination disinfection, and how those treated waters may impact health via toxicity and estrogen activity.

Contaminant classes considered are illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals such as …

The Development Of A Monolithic Spatial Heterodyne Spectrometer For Extreme Environments, Arelis Michelle Colόn

Theses and Dissertations

This work describes improvements to a novel instrument, the monolithic spatial heterodyne Raman spectrometer (mSHRS), which has potential to be utilized in space exploration and deep-ocean marine sensing. In previous work, the spatial heterodyne Raman spectrometer (SHRS) was demonstrated, as a small, high resolution, wide field of view spectrometer, originally developed for space applications where small size and compactness is a key consideration or where a wide field of view is advantageous, such as in remote spectroscopy. The spatial heterodyne spectrometer (SHS) was then later utilized for remote Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). The high throughput, high spectral resolution, and large …

Pyridyl Bis-Urea Macrocycles As Supramolecular Synthons And The Design And Synthesis Of Small Molecule Pharmaceuticals Targeting Ly6k, Devan D. Buchanan

Theses and Dissertations

Assembled pyridyl bis-urea macrocycles have been utilized as 1D supramolecular synthons to construct hierarchical assemblies. These macrocycles have both urea and pyridyl functional groups and can form non-covalent interactions with hydrogen or halogen bond donors through symmetric, ditopic acceptor motifs. Bis-urea macrocycles offer interesting capabilities as synthons to organize donors into well-defined crystal structures. In part, this is due to the urea motifs’ propensity to assemble through hydrogen bonding. New, asymmetric pyridyl macrocycles were synthesized, crystallized, and experimentally probed to determine how symmetry affects their assembly and utility as supramolecular synthons.

The Uphadhyay group identified small molecules, including NSC11150, …

Synthesis And Catalytic Behaviors Of Sub-10nm Platinum Group Metal Nanocatalysts, Zixin Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Nanoparticles of platinum group elements(Pd, Pt, Rh, Ir, Ru and Os) exhibit intriguing catalytic behaviors that are sensitively dependent upon their particle dimensions, chemical compositions, and surface structures. Platinum group elementbased nanomaterials have been widely utilized for catalyzing a series of important chemical reactions, producing over 90% of chemicals and fuels and accounting for 35% of the world's GDP globally. Reducing the overall particle sizes of the catalysts to the sub-10 nm size regime not only effectively mitigates the cost issues associated with the noble metal-based materials, but also remarkably modifies the surface atomic coordinations and the electronic band energies, …

Small Molecule Activation By Dirhenium Carbonyl Complexes, Meenal Kaushal

Theses and Dissertations

The background of small molecule activation is discussed in Chapter 1. Carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bond activation and carbon-carbon (C-C) bond formation using transition metal complexes are explained using examples from the literature. It also includes the previous work done by Dr. Adams’ lab on C-H bond activation and zwitterions in metal carbonyl complexes.

The reaction of Re₂(CO)₈(µ-C₆H₅)(µ-H) with vinyl acetate yielding three new products has been discussed in Chapter 2. One of the products Re₃(CO)₁₃(µ-η² -C₂H₃), 2.3 further reacts with I₂ resulting in …

Mechanisms And Impact Of Hypoxia Regulated Inhibins In Cancer, Ben Allen Horst

Theses and Dissertations

Inhibins are heterodimeric ligands within the TGFβ superfamily, comprised of an α-subunit (INHA) and a β-subunit (either INHBA or INHBB) with emergent roles in cancer. Inhibins are biomarkers of disease burden and prognosis in a subset of cancers and utilize the coreceptors betaglycan (TGFBR3) and endoglin (ENG) for physiological or pathological outcomes. Previously, we found inhibin promotes angiogenesis in ovarian cancer however no mechanism of regulation for inhibin expression in cancer has been established. Hypoxia, a driver of tumor growth and metastasis, regulates angiogenic pathways that are targets for vessel normalization and ovarian cancer management. …

Materials Discovery By Flux Crystal Growth: Synthesis, Structure Determination, Magnetic, And Optical Properties Of Complex Oxides, Oxychlorides, And Oxyfluorides, Darren Andrew Carone

Theses and Dissertations

Exploratory crystal growth has proven to be a successful technique in the synthesis of new compounds with desired properties. This method is very versatile and has various iterations, but results described herein were obtained through flux growth at high temperatures utilizing mixed alkali halide salts. The tunability of these reactions with respect to reactant ratios, reaction temperature, heating/cooling rates, metal precursors, and choice of flux allow for the exploration of phase spaces between a combination of elements and observation of significantly different products and/or structure types from minor tweaks.

Most of the research presented in this dissertation describes results that …

Crystal Growth Of Inorganic Halides And Oxide-Halides For Scintillation Applications And Radiation Detection, Gyanendra B. Ayer

Theses and Dissertations

Scintillators, materials which emit light when struck by high energy X-rays and y- rays, are extensively used in various fields including medical imaging, computed tomography, high-energy physics, and more recently in homeland security for the prevention of nuclear and radiological terrorism. While comparing with the traditional scintillators, which have long-term instability, high synthetic cost, toxicity, and hygroscopicity issues, metal halides have been reported to exhibit effective excitonic radioluminescence and greatly contribute in the field of scintillating applications and radiation detection. Currently, the mixed-anion oxide-fluorides have emerged as a prospective new class of scintillators, in which the mixed oxide-fluoride environment …

Novel Synthetic Strategies Toward Polyolefin-Grafted Nanoparticles, Richard Tran Ly

Theses and Dissertations

Surface functionalization of nanoparticles has proven to be a powerful and versatile strategy in the development of various materials with advanced properties. Polymer brush composition can range from complex copolymers to more simplistic polyolefin, and by functionalizing nanoparticle surfaces, mobility of distinct particles can then be tuned and, therefore, control over dispersion in a polymer matrix can be achieved. Presented in this dissertation are new synthetic strategies for the preparation of polymer nanocomposites.

The first chapter covers a novel synthetic strategy for ethylene/propylene-like copolymers grafted to silica nanoparticles. This approach utilizes Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT) polymerization to promote living …

Table Of Contents

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Luminescence And Scintillation In The Niobium Doped Oxyfluoride Rb4Ge5O9F6:Nb, Darren Carone, Vladislav V. Klepov, Scott T. Misture, Joseph C. Schaeperkoetter, Luiz G. Jacobsohn, Mina Aziziha, Juliano Schorne-Pinto, Stuart A. J. Thomson, Adrian T. Hines, Theodore M. Besmann, Hans Conrad Zur Loye

Faculty Publications

A new niobium-doped inorganic scintillating oxyfluoride, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆:Nb, was synthesized in single crystal form by high-temperature flux growth. The host structure, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆, crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pbcn with lattice parameters a = 6.98430(10) Å, b = 11.7265(2) Å, and c = 19.2732(3) Å, consisting of germanium oxyfluoride layers made up of Ge₃O₉ units connected by GeO₃F₃ octahedra. In its pure form, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆ shows neither luminescence nor scintillation but when doped …

Highly Swellable Hydrogels Prepared From Extensively Oxidized Lignin, Jihyeon Hwang, Daniella V. Martinez, Estevan J. Martinez, Gift Metavarayuth, Dustin Goodlett, Qi Wang, Mitra Ganewatta, Michael S. Kent, Chuanbing Tang

Faculty Publications

Biopolymers such as lignin are gaining renewed appeal due to the need for sustainable materials. Herein, we used chelator-mediated Fenton (CMF) chemistry to oxidize Kraft lignin to develop sustainable super absorbent materials. The CMF chemistry adds oxygen, opens aromatic rings and increases COOH content, producing hydrophilic lignin without depolymerization. UV absorption, molecular weight, elemental analysis, and titration were used to study the chemical compositions of CMF-processed lignin. Then the chemically modified hydrophilic lignin was used to produce lignin-based hydrogels utilizing an aqueous polymerization and cross-linking reaction that enabled tunable properties. The resulting lignin hydrogels absorbed water up to 96% and …

Understanding Rapid Intercalation Materials One Parameter At A Time, Wessel Van Den Bergh, Morgan Stefik

Faculty Publications

Demand for fast, energy-dense storage drives the research into nanoscale intercalation materials. Nanomaterials accelerate kinetics and can modify reaction path thermodynamics, intercalant solubility, and reversibility. The discovery of intercalation pseudocapacitance has opened questions about their fundamental operating principles. For example, are their capacitor-like current responses caused by storing energy in special near-surface regions or rather is this response due to normal intercalation limited by a slower faradaic surface-reaction? This review highlights emerging methods combining tailored nanomaterials with the process of elimination to disambiguate cause-and-effect at the nanoscale. This method is applied to multiple intercalation pseudocapacitive materials showing that the timescales …

Unusual High-Frequency Mechanical Properties Of Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticle Melts, Mayank Jhalaria, Yu Chang, Yucheng Huang, Brian C. Benicewicz, Sanat K. Kumar, George Fytas

Faculty Publications

Brillouin light spectroscopy is used to measure the elastic moduli of spherical polymer-grafted nanoparticle (GNP) melts as a function of chain length at fixed grafting density (0.47  chains/nm²) and nanoparticle radius (8 nm). While the moduli follow a rule of mixtures (Wood’s law) for long chains, they display enhanced elasticity and anomalous dissipation for graft chains <1⁢0⁢0  kDa. GNP melts with long polymers at high 𝜎 have a dry zone near the GNP core, surrounded by a region where the grafts can interpenetrate with chain fragments from adjacent GNPs. We propose that the departures from Wood’s law for short chains are due to the effectively larger silica volume fraction in the region where sound propagates—this is caused by the short, interpenetrated chain fragments being pushed out of the way. We thus conclude that transport mechanisms (of gas, ions, sound, thermal phonons) in GNP melts are radically different if interpenetrated chain segments can be “pushed out of the way” or not. This provides a facile new means for manipulating the properties of these materials.