Tunable coating allows hitch-hiking nanoparticles to slip past the immune system to their target

Four University of Mississippi students and two recent graduates have been selected to participate in the undergraduate portion of the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program.

The students are:

Katelyn Barnes, daughter of Donna Barnes and the late Scotty Barnes, of Tishomingo, a junior majoring in biological sciences

Riley Brown, daughter of Oatis Wilfred Brown III and Kimberly Rusty Brown, of Gautier, a senior majoring in biochemistry

Jamie Johnson, daughter of Janee Conner and Mark Johnson, of Falkner, a junior majoring in biological sciences

Nader Pahlevan, son of Amir and Amalia Pahlevan, of Biloxi, a senior majoring in computer science

Jamie Riggs, daughter of Alton and Jackie Haley, of Goodman, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences with a minor in chemistry

Cole Stephens, son of Craig and Shaye Stephens, of Mantachie, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry

Created in 2007, MRPSP identifies college sophomores and juniors who demonstrate the necessary commitment and academic achievement to become competent, well-trained rural primary care physicians in the state. The program offers undergraduate academic enrichment and a clinical experience in a rural setting.

Upon completion of all medical school admissions requirements, participating students can be admitted to the UM School of Medicine or William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine.

During medical school at either institution, each MRPSP scholar is under consideration for $30,000 per year, based on available funding. Consistent legislative support of MRPSP translates to 61 medical students sharing $1.83 million to support their education this fall.

Additional benefits include personalized mentoring from practicing rural physicians and academic support.

Upon completion of medical training, MRPSP scholars must enter a residency program in one of five primary care specialties: family medicine, general internal medicine, medicine-pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology or pediatrics. The MRPSP scholar must provide four years of service in a clinic-based practice in an approved Mississippi community of 15,000 or fewer population located more than 20 miles from a medically served area.

The MRPSP provides a means for rural Mississippi students to earn a seat in medical school, receive MCAT preparation, earn a $120,000 medical school scholarship in return for four years of service and learn the art of healing from practicing rural physicians.

For more information, contact MRPSP Associate Director Dan Coleman at 601-815-9022 or jdcoleman@umc.edu or go to http://mrpsp.umc.edu.

The Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program and the Mississippi Rural Dentists Scholarship Program are state-funded efforts to increase the number of dentists and physicians serving the health care needs of Mississippians in rural areas.

Housed at the UM Medical Center in Jackson and collaborating with its medical and dental schools and the College of Osteopathic Medicine at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, the programs use various outreach, mentoring and training methods to identify, support, educate and deploy new generations of health care workers for Mississippi’s underserved populations. To learn more about either program, click here.

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One recent UM graduate is adding a prestigious Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship to her list of accolades. Ellie Smith, a biochemistry major with a double minor in Spanish and biology, plans to use the scholarship to offset the costs of her first year in medical school.

The award is given by the prestigious Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, which “recognizes and encourages superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study and to promotes the unity and democracy of education,” according to its website. Currently, the society awards 50 Fellowships of $8,500 each, six at $20,000 each, and two at $35,000 each to members entering the first year of graduate or professional study.

Smith is the recipient of one of the 50, $8,500 awards. Although she said she plans to defer the scholarship for a year to pursue a gap year in South America, she intends to apply the scholarship to Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

“I aspire to serve Latinx populations in the urban United States and help diminish inequities in healthcare access,” she said.

Each university in the U.S. with a Phi Kappa Phi chapter has the opportunity to submit one student to be considered at the national level for a fellowship. Smith was required to submit a writing sample, obtain letters of recommendation, and write a personal essay.

“Despite being in the midst of a busy academic and extracurricular week, I took the time to apply and I was so thrilled when I found out I was selected as the University’s candidate,” she said. “There are clearly so many amazing students at our school, so I was greatly honored to be chosen. Further, to be chosen out of the national candidates as one of the students receiving a fellowship, I was incredibly proud and so glad to represent the University of Mississippi.”

Phi Kappa Phi Ole Miss board member Deborah Wenger said this is the fifth year the University has produced a national winner.

“Elaine’s award is an incredible honor for her and for Ole Miss. Winners are judged, not only on their academic achievement but also on their service and leadership,” she said. “I think that’s why Ole Miss has had national winners for the past five years – our university offers many opportunities for our students to learn important life skills beyond the classroom.”

Ole Miss’ 2018 PKP Fellowship Award winner was Kathryn Prendergast. 

Smith’s academic achievements are as follows:

Taylor Medalist
4.0 cumulative GPA – Summa Cum Laude, Chancellor’s Honor Roll, Ventress Scholar
Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Class Marshal
Outstanding Chemistry Graduate
2017-2018 Biochemistry Student of the Year
Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
Mortar Board

Click Here for the original story from Hotty Toddy.com

James Cizdziel (right), UM associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and recent doctoral graduate Oscar ‘Beau’ Black have spent two years researching 3D-printed firearms through a grant from the National Institute of Justice, part of the U.S. Department of Justice. Photo by Megan Wolfe/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

OXFORD, Miss. – In the summer of 2016, Transportation Security Administration screeners at Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada confiscated an oddity: a 3D-printed handgun in a man’s carry-on baggage.

The plastic gun was inoperable but accompanied by five .22-caliber bullets. The passenger said he had forgotten about the gun and willingly left it at the airport and boarded his flight without being arrested.

The TSA later said the plastic gun was believed to be the first of its kind seized at a U.S. airport.

Since the world’s first functional 3D-printed firearm was designed in 2013, such guns have increasingly been in the news. Proponents of the firearms – 3D-printed with polymers from digital files – maintain that sharing blueprints and printing the guns are protected activities under the First and Second Amendments. Opponents argue the guns are concerning because they are undetectable and also untraceable since they have no serial numbers.

Tackling some of those forensic unknowns are a University of Mississippi chemistry professor and a graduate student. Their research is developing analytical methods to explore how the firearms might be traced using chemical fingerprints rather than relying on physical evidence, with the goal of offering tools for law enforcement to track the guns as they become more widespread.

“We can positively identify the type of polymer used in the construction of the gun from flecks or smears of plastic on bullets, cartridge cases and in gunshot residue collected on clothing,” said James Cizdziel, an associate professor in the UM Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Cizdziel, who joined the Ole Miss faculty in 2008, and Oscar “Beau” Black, who recently earned his doctorate in chemistry, have spent two years researching 3D-printed firearms through a grant from the National Institute of Justice, part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The three-year, $150,000 grant, “Physical and Chemical Trace Evidence from 3D-Printed Firearms,” has resulted in a 2017 peer-reviewed paper in Forensic Chemistry, a growing reference library of mass spectra from 3D-printed firearms for use by law enforcement and a book, “Forensic Analysis of Gunshot Residue, 3D-Printed Firearms, and Gunshot Injuries: Current Research and Future Perspectives.”

The world’s first functional 3D-printed firearm was designed in 2013. The guns are 3D-printed with polymers from digital files and are untraceable since they have no serial numbers. Photo by Megan Wolfe/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

The research involved Cizdziel and Black being the first to use Direct Analysis in Real Time, or DART, Mass Spectrometry to identify polymers and organic gunshot residue in evidence from 3D-printed guns. The idea is forensic experts could trace the polymer that might show up in chemical evidence from the discharge of a 3D-printed firearm back to the type of plastic used in the gun.

“Our growing database provides a second means of identification or grouping of samples, alleviating the need for subjective interpretation of the mass spectral peaks,” said Cizdziel, a Buffalo native. “We also published fingerprinting protocols on surfaces of 3D-printed guns. 

“Overall, we demonstrated that our methods are particularly useful for investigating crimes involving 3D-printed guns.”

The pair’s research arises from an undergraduate chemistry class Cizdziel taught in 2014, Introduction to Instrumental Analysis. Before earning his bachelor’s degree in forensic chemistry in 2015, Black, who also was an undergraduate researcher in Cizdziel’s laboratory, took the class, where talk soon turned to 3D-printed firearms.

“We discussed how developing new reliable analytical methods for forensic practitioners dealing with trace evidence from 3D-printed guns would make a good doctoral research project,” Cizdziel said. “Apparently this sparked a fire in (Black), and he not only joined my research group as a graduate student but was awarded a research fellowship from the Department of Justice to do that very project.”

Black, from Weatherford, Texas, began the project in 2016, before funding was secured in 2017, and quickly realized he was in unexplored territory.

“There was such a dearth of information out there,” Black said. “There was only one, I think, report of an actual test fire (of a 3D-printed firearm) from a forensic agency.”

The pair began creating functional 3D-printed firearms – either .22-caliber or .38-caliber handguns – that used certain metal parts to comply with a federal ban on weapons that aren’t picked up by metal detectors. They test-fired them under controlled and safe conditions at the Mississippi Crime Laboratory in Pearl and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Hoover, Alabama.

“When you discharge them, they do exactly what they are designed to do,” Black said. “You can shoot them multiple times. There was one we shot dozens of times with no visible wear and tear on it.”

The discharges generated samples to analyze. The duo also evaluated the differences in evidence between 3D-printed guns and conventional guns, and used the analytical technique mass spectrometry to identify and characterize the various polymer types in 3D-printed gun evidence.

Research by University of Mississippi professor James Cizdziel and doctoral graduate Oscar ‘Beau’ Black has led to a growing reference library of polymers from 3D-printed firearms for use by law enforcement. Photo by Megan Wolfe/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

This work was the beginning of creating a reference library of various polymer samples to provide the basis of categorizing an unknown sample. The reference library holds about 50 polymer samples.

Cizdziel and Black were assisted in their research by undergraduate students and Murrell Godfrey, director of the UM forensic chemistry program and associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

Black graduated Saturday (May 11), but the pair’s research is ongoing, including expanding and improving the 3D-print polymer reference library.

“The ultimate goal would have the reference library in a format that’s similar to the other reference libraries that are out there for fingerprints, etc.,” Black said. “Every different arena has a reference library that goes along with that discipline.”

Beyond work on the reference library, the twosome is examining DNA methods on 3D-printed firearms and studying the longevity of polymer evidence under weathering conditions. Cizdziel and Black also are working on a paper that presents all their scientific discoveries when it comes to 3D-printed firearms.

Not knowing what they might find in their investigations has led to some exciting findings and groundbreaking work, Cizdziel said.

“That’s when things get interesting,” he said. “When you don’t quite know what to expect.”

Click Here to see the original May 13, 2019 article by Shea Stewart.

Gerald Rowland, instructional assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has been named Outstanding Instructor of the Year.

OXFORD, Miss. – Chemistry faculty member Gerald Rowland was honored Friday (May 10, 2019) by the College of Liberal Arts for his excellence in teaching.  Gerald Rowland, instructional assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, received the Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award.  “The College of Liberal Arts is extremely proud of Dr. Rowland,” said Donald L. Dyer, associate dean of faculty and academic affairs. “He represents everything that is good about teaching at the university.  His skills for teaching and compassion for students are evident not in only the classroom, but also in the letters of support received from students and colleagues this year in support of his nomination. The college is pleased to add this exceptional educator to a long list of distinguished and influential teachers on our campus.”  

Prof. Rowland was recognized during Commencement exercises Saturday (May 11, 2019) in the Grove.  The awards are fuel for encouragement, appreciation and gratitude, said Rowland, who received the Lambda Sigma Excellence in Teaching Award earlier this year and the Student Members of the American Chemical Society Faculty Award in 2016.

“To learn that the students were the driving force behind the award nomination is a bit overwhelming,” he said. “It has been a privilege of mine to be able to have the opportunity to teach some of the brightest minds at the university during their formative years in college.” 

One of Rowland’s nomination letters said, ” … (his) attitude to help students is unparalleled within the chemistry department and across campus.”

“(Dr. Rowland) has gone above and beyond to make sure that each of his students is successful in his class,” wrote an anonymous student. “I love how his class focuses on how to think rather than what to think.”

Click Here to see the original May 10, 2019 article by Edwin B. Smith.