The Indiana University Nanoscience Center is sponsoring a workshop on advanced battery technologies from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13, in the IU Bloomington Chemistry Department. The workshop is an outgrowth of a major two-day Energy Conference held at IU Bloomington and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in August.

Indiana University dignitaries dedicated Multidisciplinary Science Building Phase II, the Bloomington campus's newest science building, in a special ceremony on Thursday. The dedication was part of October's month-long Celebrate IU initiative. IU President Michael A. McRobbie led a platform party that included members of the IU Board of Trustees, Provost Karen Hanson, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Bennett Bertenthal, School of Public and Environmental Affairs Dean John Graham, and Provost's Professor of Geological Sciences Lisa Pratt, who has also been chair of the MSB II Design and Oversight Committees. David Johnson, president and CEO of BioCrossroads, was the event's keynote speaker.

A small molecule designed to detect cyanide in water samples works quickly, is easy to use, and glows under ultraviolet or "black" light. Although the fluorescent molecule is not yet ready for market, its Indiana University Bloomington creators report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (now online) that the tool is already able to sense cyanide below the toxicity threshold established by the World Health Organization.

A virologist and an evolutionary biologist are the latest honorees of Indiana University Bloomington's Joan Wood and James P. Holland lecture series. Mavis Agbandje-McKenna, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Florida School of Medicine, will give a talk, "Structural studies of Adeno-associated viruses towards improved gene delivery applications," at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 21, in Myers Hall room 130. Harmit Singh Malik, an associate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and an affiliate assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, will also lecture. "The high-stakes evolutionary game of 'rock, paper, scissors' between primates and viruses" will begin at 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 19, in Whittenberger Auditorium (Indiana Memorial Union).

The new Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry is the first science department created on the Indiana University Bloomington campus in 33 years, and is the culmination of more than seven years of planning. The IU Trustees recently approved the department. The department is offering M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biochemistry, but does not award undergraduate degrees. Biochemistry faculty members will teach undergraduate courses, however, for their departmental allies, Biology and Chemistry.

About 800 participants from around the world will be in Bloomington this week for the 21st American Peptide Society Symposium, a forum for exchanging cutting-edge developments in biotechnology. The program consists of scientific opinion leaders from academia with keynote lectures from two pharmaceutical CEOs and two CSOs, as well as a collective of other executives from the pharmaceutical and venture capital sectors. Indiana University Bloomington biochemist Richard DiMarchi is co-chairing the event.

The National Institutes of Health has approved a $1.2 million, four-year grant that will allow Indiana University Bloomington scientists to continue their study of Huntington's disease. The project, led by IU Bloomington structural biologist Joel Ybe, has focused on the interaction of two proteins, HIP1 (Huntingtin-interacting protein 1) and HIPPI (HIP1-protein interactor), whose association is believed to trigger the death of nervous system cells.

Indiana University faculty members recently received a $2 million, four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to evaluate the efficacy of an IU-developed online learning tool called Computer Assisted Learning Method (CALM). This grant could determine if CALM -- used by high school chemistry students and teacher -- becomes the leading program of its kind nationwide. The Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) in the IU School of Education will conduct the study.

The Indiana University Research and Technology Corporation has granted Indianapolis-based Prosolia, Inc., the option to license an IU Bloomington technology that promises to improve medical, forensic and scientific endeavors. And thanks to a new STTR (small business technology transfer) grant from the National Institutes of Health, Prosolia's scientists will work with Steven J. Ray and Jacob T. Shelley in IU Bloomington chemist Gary Hieftje's research group to develop the Hieftje group's "ambient" mass spectrometry device into a market-ready product.

Daniel J. Mindiola, associate professor of chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington, is the recipient of a 2009 Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award. Mindiola will receive a 45,000-euro prize (US $56,600) from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He will also be given the opportunity to work with some of Germany's best chemists over 11 months.

Indiana University scientists have developed a fast, low-cost, high-precision device that can be used to analyze samples in a wide array of settings -- from atop Icelandic glaciers to the benches of operating rooms. The technology, developed by IU Bloomington analytical chemist Gary Hieftje and graduate student Michael Webb, allows users to determine what chemical elements are in a solution of unknown makeup.

A 19-year-old Indiana University student who this spring will graduate Phi Beta Kappa with majors in chemistry, mathematics and Germanic studies has been named a 2009 Marshall Scholar by the British government. The scholarship, one of 40 awarded this year to students in the U.S., will allow Yun William Yu to travel to Britain and earn master's degrees over the next two years in computational biology at the University of Cambridge and biomedical physical chemistry at Imperial College London.

A consortium of scientists including Indiana University Bloomington chemist Michael VanNieuwenhze has helped secure a $38 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to research fats, cholesterols, and other lipids.

A bioinformatics group within Indiana University's School of Informatics recently received three grants, two from the National Institutes of Health and one from Eli Lilly and Company. The grants will enhance IU's impact on life sciences research. The largest grant, from the NIH, is for $810,000 and spans three years.

A Biocomplexity Institute team led by Indiana University Bloomington biophysicist James Glazier with collaborators András Czirók, Randy Heiland, Charles Little, Herbert Sauro and Santiago Schnell is set to receive $2.7 million from the National Institutes of Health to expand studies of early animal development, addressing age-old problems in developmental biology.

A classic experiment proving amino acids are created when inorganic molecules are exposed to electricity isn't the whole story, it turns out. The 1953 Miller-Urey Synthesis had two sibling studies, neither of which was published. Vials containing the products from those experiments were recently recovered and reanalyzed using modern technology. The results are reported in this week's Science.

The National Science Foundation has awarded chemists from Indiana University Bloomington a $2,925,000 grant to study how viruses pull themselves together. Martin F. Jarrold, Bogdan Dragnea, Stephen C. Jacobson, Peter J. Ortoleva, James P. Reilly, and their collaborators at the IU Nanoscience Center and Indiana University's Center for Cell and Virus Theory will study how viruses build themselves up from their components, as well as how structural transitions occur in the assembled viruses.

A new Indiana University center specializing in scientific imagery has been open only a few weeks -- and has already acquired a $930,000 National Institutes of Health grant to expand its services. IU is one of only 20 institutions chosen this year to receive an NIH High-End Instrumentation Grant. The IU Light Microscopy Imaging Center (LMIC), based in Myers Hall on the IU Bloomington campus, currently offers seven different imaging systems and is set to acquire an eighth.

U.S. News and World Report magazine has chosen three programs at Indiana University -- including its School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) -- as top 10 among their peers. Three others, including its School of Education and Kelley School of Business, are among the magazine's top 20.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded Indiana University Bloomington chemist Dongwhan Lee its 2008 Sloan Research Fellowship, a coveted $50,000 early-career grant. The fellowship is intended to enhance the careers of young faculty members in chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics.

Indiana University Bloominton's newest science building, Simon Hall, has won high honors in R&D Magazine's 2008 "Lab of the Year," an architecture competition for research facilities. Madison, Wisc.-based Flad & Associates, which designed Simon Hall, submitted their contest entry in January. Flad architects worked closely with IU architects to design a 141,000-square-foot structure that encourages interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers in fields as disparate as biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.

Indiana University Bloomington chemists have designed an organic molecule that binds negatively charged ions, a feat they hope will lead to the development of a whole new molecular toolbox for biologists, chemists and medical researchers who want to remove chlorine, fluorine and other negatively charged ions from their solutions.

SpheroSense Technologies Inc. has entered into a licensing agreement with the Indiana University Research & Technology Corp. to develop market-ready biosensor technologies. SpheroSense has chosen a headquarters for its research and development activities on Bloomington's south side.

Several Indiana University graduate programs, particularly those involved in the state's health and life sciences efforts, education and business, are ranked among the best in the latest edition of U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Graduate Schools."

Indiana University Bloomington chemist Mu-Hyun Baik has been awarded a special early career grant by the National Science Foundation to investigate the conversion of inert water to O(2) and H(2). The $555,000 Faculty Early Career Program award to Baik was sponsored by NSF's Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Program.