University of Otago, Department of Chemistry
Plant & Food Research (PFR) is running nationwide networking for early Natural products chemistry at Orokonui.
Nigel Perry presented to science teachers attending the Otago University Advanced School Sciences Academy on “Taonga natural products: mātauranga Māori and chemistry”.
This was run at Orokonui Ecosanctuary in combination with a walk to look at the plants mentioned and others, led by the excellent science communicator Taylor Davies-Colley. A highlight for Nigel was seeing the many kaka there up close – one is photographed here, shedding a tracking device!
Gordon Group
- Congratulations to Fatema Ahmmed who graduated with her PhD in December 2022 and is now working with the Riddet Institute in Palmerston North. Fatema’s PhD covered analytical spectroscopy including data fusion-based chemometrics on aquaculture samples.
- Sara Fraser, Sam Harris and Keith Gordon attended the NZIC conference in Auckland. Sam presented his Honours work on twisted excited states which he published late last year (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.2c03380). Sara talked about her work on detecting disease using multimodal spectroscopic techniques (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.0c04963) and shared Fatema’s research project on detecting adulteration of marine derived edible oils (https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27144534). Keith presented a talk on spatially offset low frequency Raman spectroscopy in which subsample materials may be analysed non-destructively (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.1c01401) and also presented some work on long-lived excited states. Sara was presented with the ACES Early Career Award from the NZIC recognising her excellent research record.
- Jeremy Rooney presented the work from his postdoc at the cyber marine science excellence advisory group meeting. Jeremy recently published some of his work in Aquaculture Research (https://doi.org/10.1111/are.16120) with Daniel Killeen from Plant and Food Research.
- Peter Remoto, Sam Harris and Keith Gordon attended the 10th Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology conference (AMN-10) in February. Keith talked on excited state spectroscopy, Sam presented a poster on new donor-acceptor compounds and Peter gave a poster on dehydration kinetics in materials as probed by low frequency Raman spectroscopy. This work from his BSc (Hons) was published last year (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.2c00121).
- Working with a team in Marine Science led by Bridie Allen, Sara, Peter, Fatema and Keith contributed to a paper highlighting the issues of microplastics in fish species published in Marine Pollution Bulletin (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114121). This is part of the new Ki uta ki tai Plastic Pollution Research Theme started at Otago in 2022.
- Summer students Lia Heremia and Samer Naji have been conducting work on a variety of projects. Lia has been working on formulating hydrogels to be used in assessing penetration depths for spatially offset Raman spectroscopy as part of Sara Miller’s Marsden and MBIE projects.
- Samer, having looked at rat brain composition as a function of diet, has also been helping researchers in zoology look at microplastics in waterways and aquatic species.
- Amir Sohail, MJ Punzalan and Mitchell Chambers started their PhD journeys in March.
- Peter Remoto has submitted his MSc thesis.
Welcome
We welcomed visitors and new colleagues to the Gordon-Miller lab in February. Elina Harju and Teemu Temburg from the Univeristy of Helsinki (pictured) are visiting the lab to undertake Raman measurements on cells. Georgina Shillito (University of Jena) is visiting to use the time-resolved experiments to investigate new photocatalysts.
Hands On at Otago
After a year off due to COVID, the chemistry department was again involved in Otago’s Hands On at Otago programme (which is now in its 33rd year). About 400 Year 12 and 13 students spent a week on campus, taking part in extended project groups each morning during the week, and then having ‘tasters’ of other subjects in the afternoons. The chemistry department runs two project groups, one studying natural products chemistry, using caffeine as a case study, and the other exploring the synthesis and properties of silver nanoparticles. Along with around 30 students who were in the project groups, another 90 took part in the taster sessions, where they made and studied [Co(PPh3)2Cl2].
Hands On at Otago provides a fantastic opportunity to introduce students to what chemistry is actually like as a subject and for them to spend time with academics and postgraduate students.
