The Catherine H. Bone lecture in chemistry is hosted by the 91茄子 chemistry department and is made possible by the endowments left by Catherine H. Bone, who taught chemistry at 91茄子from 1946-1965.
Upcoming Lecture
Save the Plants! Visualizing Cryoprotectant Permeation and Location Confined in Plant Cells and Tissues
For anyone who has looked out the window at a snow-covered pine tree and wondered how the needles stay alive in below-freezing temperatures, Nancy Levinger鈥檚 presentation may provide some insight. Save the Plants! highlights how chemistry can contribute to plant cryopreservation research and practice.
Like conifers in northern climates, some organisms possess molecules that naturally enable them to withstand cold. Scientists have copied nature to develop a way to cryopreserve biological materials, storing them at low temperatures. Applications for this work include the conservation of endangered species, as well as the storage of critical agricultural materials or exotic plants for shipment to the moon or Mars.
The Levinger research group at Colorado State University has embarked on a project to explore how plant cryopreservation agents interact with plant cells and tissues to help plants stay viable. Results demonstrate precise times and locations of the cryoprotecting agents as they interact with living plants, and researchers follow the interaction to measure how and why the cryoprotecting molecules protect against low temperatures.
Levinger combines her research and teaching interests through the involvement of undergraduate students in research at Colorado State University. She has spearheaded several programs to increase research opportunities for undergraduates, such as the Undergraduate Research Institute in the College of Natural Sciences.
Levinger earned her bachelor of science degree in integrated science and physics from Northwestern University and her doctoral degree in chemical physics from the University of Colorado. She joined the faculty at Colorado State University in 1992.
About the Bone Lecture Series
- William Daniel Phillips, PhD (2021)
- Co-recipient of The 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics; Joint Quantum Institute, The National Institute of Standards and Technology and The University Of Maryland
- Lecture Topic: "Time, Einstein and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe"
- Dr. Henry J. Pownall (2019)
- Professor of Biochemistry at Weiss Cornell Medicine and a scientist at Houston Methodist Research Institute
- Lecture Topic: "Cardioprotection via High Density Lipoprotein Therapy鈥擣rom Biophysics to Mouse Models"
- Geraldine Richmond (2018)
- University of Oregon Presidential Chair in Science, Professor of Chemistry
- Lecture Topic: "Mulling Over Emulsions: Molecular Assembly at Complex Liquid Surfaces"
- Dr. Peter J. Stang (2015)
- University of Utah Distinguished Professor & David P. Gardner Presidential Chair
- Lecture Topic: 鈥淎biological Self-Assembly: Predesigned Metallacycles and Metallacages via Coordination鈥�
- William Jorgensen, Ph.D. (2014)
- Yale University Sterling Professor of Chemistry
- Lecture Topic: "Computationally Guided Drug Discovery"
- Dr. Samuel J. Danishefsky (2013)
- Columbia University Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus; Research Scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)
- Lecture Topic: "Biologics by Chemical Synthesis"
- Dr. Roald Hoffmann (2012)
- Nobel Laureate, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, Writer and Poet
- Lecture Topic: "The Chemical Imagination at Work in Very Tight Places"
- Dr. Paul Wender (2011)
- Stanford University Department of Chemistry, Department of Chemical and Systems Biology; 91茄子 Alumnus (Class of 1969)
- Lecture Topic: "Molecular Frontiers and Future Transformative Therapies for AIDS, Alzheimer鈥檚 and Resistant Cancer (Reflections in and on the light house at Finisterre)"