The Southeastern Universities Research Association announced Henry F. Schaefer III, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia, as its 2012 SURA Distinguished Scientist Award.

The annual honor goes to a research scientist whose extraordinary work fulfills the SURA mission of "fostering excellence in scientific research." The award and its $20,000 honorarium was presented to Schaefer on March 29 in conjunction with the SURA Board of Trustees meeting being held at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Assistant Professor Shanta Dhar has been granted a three-year Idea development Award from the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Prostate Cancer Research Program (DoD-PCRP) for her grant entitled, “Combined Chemotherapy and Anti-Inflammatory Therapy for Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) using a Nanoparticle Platform.” This study aims to develop a targeted combination therapeutic approach for the treatment for metastatic prostate cancer using a highly engineered nanoparticle.

Researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancer cases—including those resistant to common treatments.

The vaccine, described this week in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals a promising new strategy for treating cancers that share the same distinct carbohydrate signature, including ovarian and colorectal cancers.

Henry F. Schaefer III, Graham Perdue professor of chemistry at the University of Georgia and director of the Center for Computational Chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award from Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded UGA two grants totaling $1.2 million for instrumentation to advance chemical analytical capabilities of biomedical researchers across campus. Jeff Urbauer (left) received funding for an NMR console, and Jon Amster (right) was funded for a new mass spectrometer.

Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), has selected Prof. Shanta Dhar to receive the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award to pursue novel research in the field of cardiovascular diseases. With this award, Prof. Dhar, an assistant professor for one year at UGA, is being recognized as one of the top junior research faculty in the country; she is one of only 30 scientists to win the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award this year.

A University of Georgia researcher has invented a new technology that can inexpensively render medical linens and clothing, face masks, paper towels—and yes, even diapers, intimate apparel and athletic wear, including smelly socks—permanently germ-free.

During the four years that Michelangelo Buonarroti spent painting the frescoes on the ceiling of Rome’s Sistine Chapel, odds are he wasn’t thinking about chemistry. But he certainly knew how science and art came together and what he had to do if he wanted his work to last.

New research just published in the journal Science by a team of chemists at the University of Georgia and colleagues in Germany shows for the first time that a mechanism called tunneling control may drive chemical reactions in directions unexpected from traditional theories.

The finding has the potential to change how scientists understand and devise reactions in everything from materials science to biochemistry.

In an economic climate in which many science departments are struggling to hire new faculty, the Department of Chemistry was able to hire two highly sought-after tenure track faculty members in the field of inorganic chemistry.