Natural sciences

Armin Sorooshian

Distinguished Scholar, Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Chemical and Environmental Engineering
Professor, Global Change - GIDP
Professor, Hydrology / Atmospheric Sciences
Professor, Optical Sciences
Professor, Public Health
Member of the Graduate Faculty
da Vinci Fellow
Contact
(520) 626-5858

Work Summary

Armin's research focuses on the effect of aerosol particles on the environment, clouds and rainfall, climate, and public health/welfare. A suite of synergistic methods are used for this research, including laboratory experiments, ground and airborne field measurements, modeling, and remote sensing observations. Since 2004, he has participated in 15 airborne field projects, including six as a mission PI with the CIRPAS Twin Otter (sponsored by ONR). Currently, Armin is involved with a multi-year NASA project called CAMP2EX (Cloud and Aerosol Monsoonal Processes-Philippines Experiment; https://espo.nasa.gov/camp2ex/content/CAMP2Ex) and is serving as the PI of a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) mission called ACTIVATE (Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment; https://activate.larc.nasa.gov/).

Research Interest

Armin's research focuses on the effect of aerosol particles on the environment, clouds and rainfall, climate, and public health/welfare. A suite of synergistic methods are used for this research, including laboratory experiments, ground and airborne field measurements, modeling, and remote sensing observations. Since 2004, he has participated in 15 airborne field projects, including six as a mission PI with the CIRPAS Twin Otter (sponsored by ONR). Currently, Armin is involved with a multi-year NASA project called CAMP2EX (Cloud and Aerosol Monsoonal Processes-Philippines Experiment; https://espo.nasa.gov/camp2ex/content/CAMP2Ex) and is serving as the PI of a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) mission called ACTIVATE (Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment; https://activate.larc.nasa.gov/).

Wei Wang

Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry
Co-Director, Arizona Center for Drug Discovery
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Endowed Chair, R Ken and Donna Coit - Drug Discovery
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Contact
(520) 626-1764

Research Interest

I am interested in exploring innovative and useful chemical tools and small molecules as probes to study biology and as therapeutics for disease treatment. My laboratory has been particularly interested in exploring chemical tools to address the important biological questions. I am a well-established investigator with over 20 years research experience and more than 240 peer reviewed publications (H-index: 72) in the fields of organic and medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. The small molecule-based fluorescence probes developed from my laboratory have been widely used by biomedical researchers as tools to study the cellular and molecular mechanisms. One of the small molecules discovered by my laboratory has been licensed to the Andaman Therapeutics for clinical trials as a new class of anticancer therapy.

Xinxin Ding

Head, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology
Professor, Cancer Biology - GIDP
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-9906

Work Summary

Xinxin Ding, PhD, department head, Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy—studies enzyme function, regulation and genetics as applied to translational research for drug safety and efficacy and genetic and environmental risks for chemical toxicity. Author of nearly 200 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and articles, he serves as associate editor for “Drug Metabolism and Disposition” and “Acta Pharmaeutica Sinica B.” Grants from the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institute of Health fund his work, in part. Former chair of the NIH XNDA study section (2016-2018), he currently chairs (2018-19) Drug Metabolism and Disposition Division of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics..

Research Interest

Xinxin Ding, PhD, department head, Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy—studies enzyme function, regulation and genetics as applied to translational research for drug safety and efficacy and genetic and environmental risks for chemical toxicity. Author of nearly 200 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and articles, he serves as associate editor for “Drug Metabolism and Disposition” and “Acta Pharmaeutica Sinica B.” Grants from the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institute of Health fund his work, in part. Former chair of the NIH XNDA study section (2016-2018), he currently chairs (2018-19) Drug Metabolism and Disposition Division of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics..

Joseph C Watkins

Director, Data Science Academy
Professor, Mathematics
Professor, Public Health
Professor, Applied Mathematics - GIDP
Professor, Genetics - GIDP
Professor, Statistics-GIDP
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 621-5245

Research Interest

Joseph C. Watkins is Professor of Mathematics and Chair of the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Statistics at the University of Arizona. Dr. Watkins has published works in the foundations of the theory of probability and has collaborated extensively with researchers in a variety of the life sciences, notably, genetics, biophysics, anthropology, bacteriology, entomology, and biochemistry. He was recognized in 2009 by the College of Science for his contributions in being named a Galileo Circle Fellow. Dr. Watkins work includes both new results in stochastic modeling and in both the theoretical and practical aspects of statistics. His research interests are broad, from understanding the mechanism of the Africanization of the honeybee to the dynamics of single molecule motors to the ancient structure of human populations in Africa. Dr. Watkins has been a leader at the University of Arizona in the interdisciplinary training at the biology/math interface both at the undergraduate and graduate level. He has been a co-investigator for an IGERT training grant and is a member of the steering committee for an NIH training grant housed in an Applied Mathematics Program. In addition, Dr. Watkins serves as the chair of the Undergraduate Biology Research Program’s Biomath Committee.

Koen Visscher

Associate Professor, Physics
Associate Professor, Molecular and Cellular Biology
Associate Professor, Optical Sciences
Associate Professor, Applied Mathematics - GIDP
Associate Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations

Research Interest

Koen Visscher is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics with an interest in Biological Physics. He holds joint appointments in Molecular and Cellular Biology as well as in the College of Optical Sciences, and is a member of the Applied Mathematics Graduate Interdisciplinary Program. His research focuses on the role of mechanical force in Biology using single-molecule techniques such as optical tweezers. He pioneered the so called molecular force clamp, a feedback controlled optical tweezers that is able to maintain a constant force on a single individual moving motor protein. Recent interests are RNA structure, nucleic acid-protein interactions interactions, and translational recoding via -1 frameshifting.

Josef Vagner

Research Professor
Director, Ligand Discovery Laboratory
Research Associate Professor, Pharmacology
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-4179

Research Interest

Josef Vagner, PhD, is an Associate Research Professor at the University of BIO5 Research Institute and the Director of the Ligand Discovery Laboratory. Dr. Vagner is expert in the field of drug discovery and development, and he is focused on the design, synthesis, purification, characterization and screening of compound arrays.He has published over 70 original research papers and 31 patents. He is a frequent presenter at national and international meetings (American Chemical Society and Peptide Societies).Dr. Vagner designed and developed of compounds for in vivo pharmacologic applications and translation programs. He has over 25 years experience in synthesis and structural analysis of de novo ligands for various biological targets, including a recent focus on ligands targeting GPCRs and multivalent ligands. These experiences include 10 years of work in the pharmaceutical industry (Sanofi/ Selectide, Novo Nordisk, Discovery Partner International) where he specialized in combinatorial chemistry and array synthesis of small molecules. During his time in industry, he supervised teams of workers who successfully accomplished the synthesis of more than ten large libraries (with >10,000 compounds each).

Steven D Schwartz

Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry-Sci
Professor, Applied Mathematics - GIDP
Regents Professor
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 621-6363

Research Interest

My research interests relate to the theoretical chemistry and biophysics of complex systems. Current areas of funded research include the study of protein dynamics in enzymatic reactions, quantum tunneling in enzymatic reactions, modeling of the cardiac thin filament with application to disease mechanism, and the study of the properties of micelles created from green surfactants. I am chair elect of the biological physics division of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the APS and the AAAS.

Donato Romagnolo

Professor, Nutritional Sciences
Associate, Center for Toxicology
Professor, Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Professor, Cancer Biology - GIDP
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-9108

Research Interest

Donato Romagnolo, MSc, PhD, has served as a member of study sections for the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and as a scientific reviewer for nutritional, cancer, and pharmacology and toxicology scientific journals. Dr. Romagnolo is a member of the Training Grant in Cancer Biology at the University of Arizona. Dr. Romagnolo's research focuses on: 1) mechanisms of epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes by environmental and dietary xenobiotics, and 2) role of dietary bioactive food components in the etiology and prevention of cancer and inflammation. For the last 14 years, Dr. Romagnolo's research has been funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Army Department of Defense, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission.Some of his research reveals humans are exposed to a complex mixture of ligands of the aromatic hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). Prototypical AhR agonists include the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), and the dioxin-like compound 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzene(p)dioxin (TCDD). Increased incidence of breast cancer is documented in human populations of industrialized areas where high levels of dioxins are found in the air, soil, drinking water, and cow milk. Unlike PAH, TCDD is not metabolized and it promotes tumor development. Population studies reported the presence of TCDD in breast milk, suggesting this agent may accumulate in breast tissue and be a potential risk factor in mammary neoplasia. The in-utero activation of the AhR with TCDD increased the susceptibility to mammary carcinogens in rat female offspring. The activation of the AhR pathway may increase the susceptibility to breast cancer through epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes, including p16 and p53, while inducing transcription of the proinflammatory COX-2 gene.

Jeffrey Pyun

Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry-Sci
Professor, Optical Sciences
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Member of the General Faculty
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 626-1834

Research Interest

Our research program is focused on the synthesis and characterization of novel polymeric and composite materials, with an emphasis on the control of nanoscale structure. Recent developments in polymer and colloid chemistry offer the synthetic chemist a wide range of tools to prepare well-defined, highly functional building blocks. We seek to synthesize complex materials from a "bottom up" approach via the organization of molecules, polymers and nanoparticles into ordered assemblies. Control of structure on the molecular, nano- and macroscopic regimes offers the possibility of designing specific properties into materials that are otherwise inaccessible. We are particularly interested in compatabilizing interfaces between organic and inorganic matter as a route to combine the advantageous properties of both components. This research is highly interdisciplinary bridging the areas of physics, engineering and materials science with creative synthetic chemistry.

Jeanne E Pemberton

Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry-Sci
Regents Professor
Professor, BIO5 Institute
Primary Department
Department Affiliations
Contact
(520) 621-8245

Research Interest

Jeanne Pemberton, PhD, is a household name in chemistry departments across the country. Her research on surface vibrational spectroscopy has enabled fundamental advances in the field of analytical chemistry.In her 25 years at The University of Arizona, Pemberton has received more than 40 research grants. Among the many boards and committees she serves, she was the chair of the Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee at the National Science Foundation in 2004. In addition to receiving the College of Science Distinguished Teaching Award, she has also received the distinguished American Chemical Society Award for Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, which is among the highest honors in her field.Dr. Pemberton’s group research seeks to develop an understanding of chemistry in several technologically important areas including electrochemistry and electrochemically-related devices, chromatography, self-assembled monolayers, surfactant systems, and environmental and atmospheric systems. Methodologies employed for these efforts include surface vibrational spectroscopies, near-field optical methods, electrochemistry, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, LEED, work function measurements, ellipsometry, electron microscopy, and the scanning probe microscopies AFM and STM. Molecular nanoscale imaging exists prominently in the ability to elucidate structural and mechanistic details of surface and interfacial chemistry.Two images of transient intermediate states on NaCl in its reaction with the mineral acids, HNO3 and H2SO4, are shown below. These transient structures are formed en route to the final surface products of crystalline NaNO3 and NaHSO4, respectively.Specific interfacial systems of interest include electrochemical battery and electroluminescent and electrochromic devices, models of these devices fabricated and studied in ultrahigh vacuum, organized molecular assemblies at solid surfaces or air-water interfaces formed spontaneously or by self-assembly or Langmuir-Blodgett techniques, chromatography stationary phase systems, soil and mineral systems important in the fate and transport of environmentally important chemicals, and surfaces such as ice, mineral acids, and alkali halides important in atmospheric processes.