Lab News
2022, July - Ehigbai Oikeh successfully defends his Ph.D. Dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Oikeh!
Congratulations to Ehi on his successful Ph.D. defense on understanding free radical and radiation damage in condensed DNA.
2022, July - Undergraduate student Zoe Gallegos received the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Award from UK A&S. Congratulations, Zoe!
Zoe was awarded a SURF award to support her summer research on hydrogels for mitochondria delivery to the spinal chord. Great job!
2022, April - Md Abu Monsur Dinar was awarded the A&S Outstanding TA Award. Congratulations!
DeRouchey group graduate student Md Abu Monsur Dinar was awarded the 2022 Outstanding TA Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Congratulations Dinar!
2021, November - Nasir Uddin successfully defends his Ph.D. Dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Uddin!
Congratulations to Nasir on his successful Ph.D. defense on succinylated PEI gene delivery agents.
2021, August - Congrats to Nasir and Logan for their paper in Molecular Pharmaceutics
New study from Pack & DeRouchey labs. They show that with minimal polymer modification, significant enhancements for gene delivery and CRISPR/Cas9 repair in the presence of serum were achieved. link
2021, May - Kanthi Nuti successfully defends her Ph.D. Dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Nuti!
Congratulations to Kanthi on her successful Ph.D. defense on charge-charge interactions in particle transport in biopolymer solutions.
2021, April - Md Abu Monsur Dinar was awarded Charles H.H. Griffith Outstanding General Chemistry Teaching Assistant Award. Congratulations!
DeRouchey group graduate student Md Abu Monsur Dinar was awarded the 2021 Charles H. H. Griffith Outstanding General Chemistry TA Award from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky. This award is presented every year to presented to an outstanding teaching assistant in the General Chemistry program, based on nominations from the faculty and laboratory supervisors. Congratulations Dinar!
2020, October - Congratulations to Kanthi for placing third in the UK GradResearch Live! 2020 3TM competition
Congratulations to Kanthi Nuti who won third place in this year's UK GradResearch Live! Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.
2020, April - Congrats to Stuart for paper in Environmental Science: Nano
New study from Unrine, Tsyusko & DeRouchey labs shows environmental pH and natural organic matter are dominant factors affecting the efficacy of chitosan/dsRNA nanoparticles as biological control agents in realistic agricultural applications. link
2020, April - Congrats to Christian for paper in BMC Genomics
New paper from Moseley & DeRouchey labs. This study produced by Christian Powell (undergraduate senior in Chemistry and first author on this paper) provides phylogenetic evidence based on amino acid sequence comparisons for a novel potential type of crosslink in vertebrate sperm protamines involving cysteine-tyrosine and tyrosine-tyrosine crosslinks. link
2020, April - Kanthi Nuti was awarded the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. Congratulations!
DeRouchey group graduate student Kanthi Nuti was awarded the 2020 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky. Congratulations Kanthi!
2020, March - Congrats to Xu Fu for paper in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry
New paper from Richards & DeRouchey labs. Our studies extend htFCS for the characterization of cell-derived vesicles (CDV) and for use as a high throughput screening assay of surface receptor composition on extracellular vesicles such as exosomes. link
2020, February - DOD award from the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program
Congratulations to Sasha Rabchevsky (UK) on leading a successful DOD grant on mitochondrial transplantation to treat spinal cord injury. Thrilled to be a CoI and participate in this exciting work.
2019, October - UK GradResearch Live! in the 3MT competition Finalist
Congratulations to Kanthi Nuti who has advanced to the finals of UK GradResearch Live! in the 3MT competition.
2019, October - SERMACS Fall Meeting, Savannah, GA
Congratulations to Kanthi, Nasir, and Ehi for presenting work with Dr. D in Savannah this Fall.
2019, August - ACS National Fall Meeting, San Deigo, CA
Congratulations to Kanthi & Ehi who presented work in San Diego this summer.
2019, May - Daniel Kirchhoff successfully defends his Ph.D. Thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Kirchhoff!
Congratulations to Daniel, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing his dissertation defense.
2019, April- Graduate student Kanthi Nuti was awarded the RCTF Fellowship, 2019-2020
DeRouchey group graduate student Kanthi Nuti was awarded the University of Kentucky's Research Challenge Trust Fund (RCTF) Fellowship for biochemistry. Kanthi's work is focused on membraneless-organelles.
2019, April- Undergraduate student Christian Powell was awarded honorable mention at the RUPC
Christian Powell, an undergraduate working in the DeRouchey and Hunter Moseley Labs, was awarded honorable mention at this year's Regional Undergraduate Poster Competition for his excellent work on MSA analysis of eutherian and metatherian protamines. Congrats Christian!.
2019, April- Graduate student Kanthi Nuti awarded People's Choice Award at UK GradTeach Live
DeRouchey Lab member, Kanthi Nuti received the People’s Choice Award at the inaugural event of UK’s GradTeach Live Competition. Congratulations, Kanthi!
2018, December - Hope Abdalla successfully defends her Masters Thesis. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Hope Cook Abdalla, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing her Master's thesis defense on investigations of amyloid β peptide oligomer dissociation mechanisms by single molecule fluorescence techniques.
2018, November - Renovations to Chem-Phys is underway
The Chem-Phys Building is undergoing a two-phase construction project focused on a complete renovation of the third floor and a new exterior facade for the building. More information can be found here.
2018, October - DeRouchey group members present at SERMACS in Augusta, GA (Oct 31-Nov 3, 2018). DeRouchey group members (Daniel Kirchhoff, Ehigbai Oikeh and Kanthi Nuti) presented three posters during the poster sessions.
2018, August - Yvonne Fondufe-Mittendorf, Kevin Pearson and Jason DeRouchey were awarded a UK-CARES Pilot Grant Award through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS/NIH). This pilot study is focused on studying epigenetic rearrangements in sperm caused by chronic cadmium exposure.
2018, June - Don Frazier and Brett Spear were awarded a Innovative Programs to Enhance Research Training (IPERT) Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Jason DeRouchey, Sarah D'Orazio, Steven Estus, Yvonne Fondufe-Mittendorf, Kevin Pearson, Michael Murphy and Alphonso Keaton are serving as coIs on this R25 Research Training and Career Development award to help improve diversity in science and healthcare.
2018, April - Ehighai Oikeh was awarded Charles H.H. Griffith Outstanding General Chemistry Teaching Assistant Award. Congratulations!
DeRouchey group graduate student Ehighai Oikeh was awarded the 2017-2018 C. H. H. Griffith Outstanding General Chemistry TA Award from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky. This award is presented every year to presented to an outstanding teaching assistant in the General Chemistry program, based on nominations from the faculty and laboratory supervisors. Congratulations Ehi!
2018, April - Jacquelyn Rhinehart wins prize at Regional Undergraduate Poster Competition in Chemistry. Congratulations!
DeRouchey group undergraduate student Jacquelyn Rhinehart was awarded honorable mention: fourth place prize for her poster presentation at this year's Regional Undergraduate Poster Competition in Chemistry. This year we had over 40 undergraduates present their work. Congratulations Jackie!
2017, November - Joseph Duke successfully defends his Masters Thesis. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Joseph Duke, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing his Master's thesis defense on the synthesis and development of zwitterionic PEI for optimized delivery of Nucleic acids.
2016, August - Cody Gay successfully defends his Masters Thesis. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Cody Gay, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing his Master's thesis defense.
2016, April - Jason DeRouchey, Chris Richards and Ruigang Yang awarded a Instrument Development for Biological Research (IDBR) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a new imaging and data collection platform for ht-FCS/TIRF.
2016, April- Graduate student Daniel Kirchhoff was awarded the RCTF Fellowship, 2016-2017
DeRouchey group graduate student Daniel Kirchhoff was awarded the University of Kentucky's Research Challenge Trust Fund (RCTF) Fellowship for biochemistry. Spermatozoa are transported through the epididymis during normal sperm development typically lasting weeks. Sperm undergo necessary maturation processes as they transport through three regions of the epididymus: the corpus (head), the caput (body), and the cauda (tail). The maturation is known to be critical but little is known about the development of the DNA packaging in the chromatin during this process. Daniel’s work will focus on understanding DNA packaging in sperm chromatin during these different stages of the spermatozoa maturation process.
2016, April - Min (Amy) An successfully defends her Ph.D. Thesis. Congratulations, Dr. An!
Congratulations to Amy, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing her dissertation defense.
2015, December - Xiaolu Zhang successfully defends her Ph.D. Thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Zhang!
Congratulations to Xiaolu, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing her dissertation defense.
2015, May - Daniel Kirchhoff was awarded Charles H.H. Griffith Outstanding General Chemistry Teaching Assistant Award
DeRouchey group graduate student Daniel Kirchhoff was awarded the 2014-2015 C. H. H. Griffith Outstanding General Chemistry TA Award from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky. This award is presented every year to presented to an outstanding teaching assistant in the General Chemistry program, based on nominations from the faculty and laboratory supervisors. Congratulations Daniel!
2015, March - Jason DeRouchey awarded Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF)
2014, May - DeRouchey group welcomes summer REU student Jonathan Gigas
DeRouchey group was selected to host summer research experiences for undergraduates (REU) student Jonathan Gigas from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The NSF-REU Summer research experiences for undergraduates at the University of Kentucky is a multidisciplinary undergraduate summer program in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Sciences focusing on cell/protein interactions with materials and incorporation of these systems into devices. Jon's project involves single molecule methods to study the protein corona; the adsorption of a layer of proteins on nanoparticles in contact with biological media due to the high surface energies of these engineered nanomaterials.
2014, May - Jason DeRouchey awarded Igniting Research Collaboration (IRC) pilot project Award from the University of Kentucky
PROJECT: Characterizing ceria nanoparticle-protein interactions to enable optimization of transferrin receptor-mediated endocytosis
2014, May- Chen Chen successfully defends her Masters Thesis. Congratulations!
Congratulations to Chen Chen, UK Chemistry graduate student in the lab on passing her Master's thesis defense.
2014, March - Graduate student Xiaolu Zhang was awarded the RCTF Fellowship, 2014-2015
DeRouchey group graduate student Xiaolu Zhang was awarded the University of Kentucky's Research Challenge Trust Fund (RCTF) Fellowship for biochemistry. The diffusible soluble oligomeric amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) has been identified as a toxic agent in Alzheimer’s disease that can cause synaptic dysfunction and memory loss, indicating its role as potential therapeutic targets for AD treatment. The goal of Xiaolu's research is to use single molecule fluorescence methodologies to investigate the kinetics and mechanisms of soluble of soluble oligomer dissociation.
2013, May - DeRouchey group welcomes summer REU student David Harvey
DeRouchey group was selected to host summer research experiences for undergraduates (REU) student David Harvey from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN. The NSF-REU Summer research experiences for undergraduates at the University of Kentucky is a multidisciplinary undergraduate summer program in Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Engineering, and Pharmaceutical Sciences focusing on cell/protein interactions with materials and incorporation of these systems into devices. David's project involves elucidating barriers and structure-activity relationships (SARs) in DNA Delivery using single molecule fluoresence methods in collaboration with the groups of Dan Pack and Chris Richards at UK.
2013, April - Undergraduate student James Hutchison Received the Summer Research & Creativity Fellowship
DeRouchey group undergraduate student James Hutchison was awarded the University of Kentucky Undergraduate Summer Research and Creativity Awards from the College of Arts and Sciences. This $2000 awards will be used to support his project on drug-DNA interactions as well as provide travel funds to the upcoming Gibbs Conference in the Fall.
2013, April - DeRouchey group members present at Spring ACS in New Orleans (April 8-11, 2013)DeRouchey group members (Min An, Xiaolu Zhang, and James Hutchison) presented four posters in the biochemistry and polymer chemistry poster sessions.
2013, March - Graduate student Min An was awarded the RCTF Fellowship, 2013-2014 DeRouchey group graduate student Min An (Amy) was awarded the University of Kentucky's Research Challenge Trust Fund (RCTF) Fellowship for biochemistry. The goal of Amy's research is to develop basic understanding and predictive capability of how protamine chemistry influences the fundamental protamine-DNA and DNA-DNA interactions in sperm chromatin. Congratulations to Amy on winning this prestigious fellowship.
