2014 Penn State Bioinorganic Workshop

The Penn State Bioinorganic Workshop, which will be held from May 28 to June 4, will provide a student with the research tools needed to understand the formation, function, and regulation of the many metallocofactors found in Nature. It is designed to provide a complete-immersion training experience to ~120 students and postdocs by 25 faculty experts in 21 different techniques important to a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, bioinformatics, analytical chemistry, and physical chemistry. The workshop will include lectures as well as hands-on practicals in a variety of experimental techniques including introductory and advanced EPR spectroscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy, magnetic circular dichroism, resonance Raman, X-ray, high resolution mass spectrometry, isothermal titration calorimetry, cryoreduction techniques, bioformatics methodologies, and density functional theory calculations. The workshop will have several broader impacts. First, it will make important contributions to training of students and postdocs. The workshop will allow approximately 80 young researchers to immerse themselves in a wide variety of methods and concepts central to this research area, thus receiving training that will undoubtedly be broader than they could possibly receive in any single research group. The workshop will also be a valuable teaching experience for the approximately 40 students and postdocs that serve as supporting instructional staff for the experimental part of the program. Second, the workshop will have far-reaching consequences for the field of bioinorganic chemistry, because it will ensure that the future generation of scientists will be broadly equipped to carry out collaborative research. Furthermore, as the previous workshops from the 1990s have demonstrated, many of today's bioinorganic chemists first met as participants at a bioinorganic workshop. Thus, the program will establish a network of relationships that will aid collaboration and communication among members of this next generation. Third, many aspects of bioinorganic chemistry are directly related to central challenges facing society. Fundamental collaborative research in bioinorganic chemistry may provide important insight for rational design of chemical/industrial processes. Examples include (i) the improvement of the Haber Bosch process, a crucial process for modern agriculture, by a better understanding of the enzyme nitrogenase; (ii) the harnessing of solar energy and its conversion to other forms of energy (e.g. production of hydrogen or alkanes); (iii) the production of fungible biofuels from simple sugars by genetically engineered bacteria; and (iv) the production of fine chemicals by stereoselective functionalization of aliphatic carbons with a variety of functional groups.