Chemistry & Biochemistry

UMBC’s Department of Chemistry achemcollagend Biochemistry is comprised of  25 faculty members and over 50 graduate students dedicated to furthering research efforts in all of the major sub-disciplines of chemistry including: organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, and biochemistry. Research faculty in the department are pursuing interdisciplinary research projects along the chemistry-biology interface with emphasis on human health, and in materials science with emphasis on nanoscience and sustainable nanotechnology. The faculty members are engaged in make, measure, model activities that span a wide range of topics including: super resolution single molecule microscopy, development of bio-inspired battery materials, the study of cellular metabolism at the molecular level, the development of  electrochemical probes for neuroscience research, the development and application of molecular modeling techniques to understand the effect of weak allosteric effects on enzyme activity, the development of molecular luminescent probes for biomedical imaging, the use of x-ray crystallography and biochemistry techniques to elucidate molecular structure-function relationships in proteins and enzymes, the development of novel sensing tools and strategies for the analysis of single cells,the synthesis of nanocomposite gold-polymer materials for drug delivery applications, the development of molecular probes of DNA and proteins and stimuli responsive polymers, ultrafast spectroscopy for the detection of explosive materials, the synthesis of antiviral drugs based on nucleoside/nucleoside-like compounds, the development and application of metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) and related plasmon-fluorescence technologies for quantitative assays of pathogens, development and application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques to understanding how retroviruses assemble and how they specifically recognized and package their genetic material with direct implication to elucidate the structure of important domains in HIV particles, and the development of next generation optical nanomaterials that retain high function while minimally impact human health and the environment. Faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry collaborate closely with researchers in other UMBC Departments in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and the College of Engineering. They also collaborate with researchers at local institutions, including the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and local industry,government laboratories, and with researchers in other academic institutions in the U.S. and around the world.

Chair: Dr. Brian Cullum, Professor

 

For more information please visit http://chemistry.umbc.edu/.