Chen Group - Cornell University

Archived News

2012

January 2011:

Kyu-Sung and Guokun's paper on single Pt nanoparticle catalysis just appeared on Nano Letters! See link.
Nesha concludes her successful career in the group and moves to Harvard Medical School for postdoc. We wish her continued success.
Former postdoc Weilin Xu moves to a professor position in Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

2011

December 2011:
- We welcome first-year graduate students Ningmu Zou, Kaori Kubo, and Guanqun Chen join the group!
August 2011:
- Justin is awarded a highly competitive and prestigious NSF postdoc fellowship. Congratulations, Justin!
July 2011:
- We welcome Justin Sambur from Colorado State Univ to join us as a new postdoc!
June 2011:
- Congratulations to Danya for being selected for a Chemistry and Biology Interfaces traineeship!
- Guokun concludes his research in our group and moves to NIST. We wish him well in his continued success!
- ACS PRF awards a new grant to support our single-molecule electrocatalysis research on carbon nanostructures.
- Peng is officially promoted to Associate Professor with indefinite tenure, effective July 1.
May 2011:
- Rupa Sarkar concludes her postdoc position in the group. We wish her well in her new position at NYU.
March 2011:
- Peng Chen receives a Distinguished Junior Faculty Award from the Chinese-American Chemistry & Chemical Biology Professors Association (CAPA).
January 2011:
- We welcome Tai-Yen Chen into our group as a new postdoc!

2010

November 2010:
- Debashis concludes his postdoc research in the group and will move to Waseda University in Japan for another postdoc. We wish him well in his future pursuits.
- We welcome Danya J. Martell Smart into our group for graduate research!
- The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology recommends Peng for promotion to the rank of associate professor with tenure.
August 2010:
- We welcome undergraduate Kimberly Yeh to join our lab for research.
- Our review article "Single-molecule fluorescence imaging of nanocatalytic processes" has been accepted by Chem. Soc. Rev. It will appear in a thematic issue on "Understanding the Chemistry of Active Sites in Heterogeneous Catalysis - Lessons from In-Situ Spectroscopy Studies".
- Farewell to Jaime Benitez, who starts a postdoc position at A&EP at Cornell, and to Hahn Chong, who concludes his summer research in our group.
- Farewell to Alec White, who concludes his summer research experience in the group.
- Congratulations to Eric on being selected for a CCMR IGERT fellowship.
July 2010:
- Congratulations to Aaron for winning the Chemistry poster award at the Graduate Association of Chemistry poster session.
- 2nd Ph.D. from the group - Congratulations to Dr. Nesha May Andoy!
- DOE awards a new grant to support our research in chemical imaging of single particle catalysis.
- We welcome Dr. Chandra Joshi from Free University of Berlin, Feng Yang from Nanjing University, and Ace Santiago from University of the Philippines to join us!
June 2010:
- Our group's single-molecule electrocatalysis work featured on the cover of Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.!

We welcome Hahn Chong to join us for summer REU.

May 2010:
- First PhD from the group - Congratulations to Dr. Jaime Benitez!
- We welcome Alec White from Whitman College to join us for summer research.
- Our group's single-molecule bioinorganic chemistry research featured on the cover of Natural Product Reports! This is a themed issue on "Metals in Cells".
April 2010:
- Weilin Meng receives the Hill Fellowship for undergraduate summer research. Congratulations, Weilin!
- Nesha wins Tunis Wentink Prize for outstanding academic and research performance. Congratulations, Nesha!
- Jaime and Aaron's research article on metallochaperone dynamics has been accepted by Faraday Discussions.
February 2010:
- Our invited Perspective article on single-molecule nanoscale electrocatalysis has been accepted by Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.
January 2010:
- Our invited review on our single-molecule studies of metal regulation and transport accepted by Nat. Prod. Rep. It will appear in the themed issue of Metal Trafficking.

2009

December 2009:
- Weilin's review article on single-nanoparticle catalytic kinetics featured on the cover of Nano Research.
- Weilin's single-molecule electrocatalysis of carbon nanotubes featured on the cover of Nano Letters.
November 2009:
- Congratulations to Xiaochun on the acceptance of his paper by J. Am. Chem. Soc.! This paper describes a single-particle, single-molecule study of size-dependent catalysis of Au-nanoparticles.
- We welcome Eric Choudhary joining our group for graduate research. Welcome, Eric!
October 2009:
- Jaime's article on using nanovesicle trapping to study weak protein interactions accepted by Methods in Enzymology.
- Weilin's brief review article on single-particle kinetics accepted by Nano Research.
- Dr. Rupa Sarkar from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science joins as a postdoc. Welcome!
September 2009:
- We welcome Dr. Kyu-Sung Han from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
August 2009:
- We welcome Weilin Meng to join our group for undergrad research.
- Peng selected as 2010 Paul Saltman Awardee.
- Aaron wins Poster Award at Gordon Research Conference on Cell Biology of Metals. Congratulations to Aaron!
- Nesha's paper on CueR-HJ study is featured on the cover of Biophysical Journal.
July 2009:
- NSF Division of Engineering awards a grant to support our nanocatalysis research.
May 2009:
- Undergrads Montwaun and Matt join the group for summer research. Welcome!
- Nesha's paper on CueR-HJ interactions accepted by Biophys. J.!
Apr 2009:
- Weilin concludes his highly successful postdoc career in the group and moves to Berkeley Chemical Engineering. We wish him the best in his future pursuits.
- Army Research Office awards a grant to fund our nanocatalysis research.
- Chemical & Engineering News article "Single-Molecule Fluorescence Events Seen In Real Time" highlights our single-molecule electrocatalysis work.
- Nanowerk article "Pinpointing catalytic reaction sites on carbon nanotube walls" highlights our single-molecule electrocatalysis work.
- Chemistry World news "Catalytic behaviour of SWCNTs scrutinised" highlights our single-molecule nanotube electrocatalysis research.
- Cornell Chronicle article "Finding how carbon nanotubes work as catalysts could lead to cleaner fuels" highlights our single-molecule study on carbon nanotube electrocatalysis.
- Weilin's paper on single-molecule electrocatalysis of single-walled carbon nanotubes accepted by Nano Lett.!
Feb 2009:
- Our FRONTIERS article on single-nanoparticle catalysis featured on the cover of Chem. Phys. Lett.
- Chemistry World features Weilin's paper about single nanoparticle catalysis in Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. See "Single nanocatalyst behavior revealed" by Nina Notman.
- Peng Chen selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.
Jan 2009:
- Our FRONTIERS article on single-turnover study of nanocatalysis accepted by Chem. Phys. Lett.
- Weilin's study in quantifying nanoparticle activity heterogeneity accepted by Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

2008

Dec 2008: Nanocatalysis paper selected by Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology, 2008, 18(23) [Link] and Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research, 2008, 16(11) [link].
Nov 2008:
- Weilin's paper on single-molecule kinetic theory of heterogeneous and enzyme catalysis accepted by J. Phys. Chem. C.
- Weilin's work on single nanoparticle catalysis appeared in Nature Materials on-line on Nov 9! Find out how we can watch and interrogate a single gold nanoparticle catalyst in action in real time here.
October, 2008
- Guokun Liu joins as a postdoc.
08/22/2008: NIH-NIGMS awards a R01 grant to fund our single-molecule bioinorganic research!
06/07/2008: New student Hao Shen joins the lab. Welcome!
06/03/2008: Welcome Rita Medina from University of Puerto Rico joining us for summer REU!
05/14/2008: New grant awarded by the Cornell Center for Materials Research for a collaborative research with Profs. Roger Loring and Abe Stroock on the catalytic dynamics of single nanoparticles.
04/11/2008: New grant awarded from ACS Petroleum Research Foundation to support our nanoparticle catalysis research.
03/13/2008: Dr. Xiaochun Zhou joined us as a postdoc today!
02/05/2008: Our copper chaperone work appeared on JACS asap online.
01/25/2008: Jaime and Aaron's paper on probing transient chaperone protein interactions with nanovesicle trapping has been accepted by JACS!
01/21/2008: We welcome Aleksandr Kalininskiy joins us as a undergrad researcher!
01/18/2008: Feng Gao, from U Penn, just joined us today. Welcome!
01/16/2008: We welcome Debashis to our group, who has joined us today!

2007

12/18/2007: Farewell to Susanta, who has completed a successful postdoctoral research in our group. Susanta will venture into a new direction in single-molecule research at NIH. We wish him the best for his future pursuit. To carry on our ever-increasing research activities, two new postdoctoral researchers will join us in January 2008.
12/05/2007: New grant from Wilson Disease Association to support our single-molecule studies of the Wilson Disease Protein.
12/03/2007: Jaime and Aaron have submitted their work on probing transient interactions between the copper chaperone Hah1 and Wilson Disease protein. Congratulations!
11/27/2007: Congratulations to Aaron, who has been selected for a Molecular Biophysics Traineeship!
09/20/2007: Susanta and Nesha's paper on PbrR691-engineered HJ interaction has appeared in JACS ASAP!
09/18/2007: Weilin and Jason have submitted their work on single nanoparticle catalysis at single-turnover resolution. Congratulations!
09/15/2007: We're working on another new version of the website. Please bear with us as everything slowly gets replaced from our old version to the new version.
08/2007: Peng and Nesha's review on single-molecule fluorescence studies of bioinorganic systems has been accepted by Inorg. Chim. Acta.!
08/2007: Susanta and Nesha's paper on probing metalloregulator-DNA interactions using engineered Holliday junctions has been accepted by J. Am. Chem. Soc. Congratulations!
06/2007: Peng and Nesha submitted a short review discussing single-molecule fluorescence studies and possible further applications related to bioinorganic chemistry.
05/2007: Jaime was selected again for a NIH Molecular Biophysics Traineeship.
03/2007: Susanta and Nesha submitted their work of engineering DNA Holliday junctions as general single-molecule reporters to probe protein-DNA interactions. They applied this novel method to study how a MerR-family metalloregulator interacts with DNA for transcriptional regulation.
02/2007: In recognition of our innovative and significant research in Single-Molecule Bioinorganic Chemistry, Peng Chen was awarded a 2007 NSF Career Award. Congratulations to Peng! Congratulations to Nesha and Jaime, who have made significant contributions to the work described in the winning proposal.
01/2007: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! As a wonderful gift of the year, Weilin Xu joins our research group! Welcome!

2006

09/2006: Aaron Keller pledges allegiance in our group! Welcome!
08/2006: Jason Kong becomes another happy member of our lab. Welcome!
07/2006: Dr. Susanta Sarkar joins us as a postdoctoral fellow from University of Oregon. Welcome!
06/2006: Jaime Benitez was selected to receive a Molecular Biophysics Training Grant. Congratulations to Jaime's good work!
06/2006: Undergrad Eric Yeh joins us for summer research. Welcome to the group!
03/2006: Derek Klarin wins Hughes Undergraduate Scholarship. Congratulations!
01/2006: First year TPCB student Nick Harbison joins us for rotation for spring 2006. Welcome!
01/2006: Cornell undergraduate Derek Klarin and Steve Hohwald join the lab. Welcome!

2005

12/2005: New graduate students Nesha May Andoy and and Qi Wang join the lab. Welcome!
08/2005: Peng Chen wins a Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award! Yay!
07/2005: Lab was born.