A collaborative research program involving faculty, graduate students, undergraduates and high school teachers and students is working to develop low–tech field tests for chemicals, with numerous applications in developing countries. The effort is led by six Notre Dame faculty members — Marya Lieberman, Holly Goodson, and Graham Lappin of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Patrick Flynn of Computer Science and Engineering; and David Go of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering — with collaborators Toni Barstis at Saint Mary’s College and George Twaddle at Ivy Tech Community College. The project is affiliated with the Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics Initiative and the Eck Center for Global Health.

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James Clancy, a Notre Dame graduate student in the Biological Sciences, is attending the annual  Nobel Laureate meeting in Lindau, Germany, from June 26 through July 1.

The 2011 meeting is focusing on medicine and physiology. During the meeting, the Laureates lecture on topics of their choice related to medicine or physiology in the mornings and participate in less formal, small group discussions with the students in the afternoons and some evenings.

Clancy, who is a member of Prof. Crislyn D’Souza–Schorey’s laboratory, is a recipient of the Lilly Presidential and GLOBES fellowships at Notre Dame. He also holds an Indiana Clinical Translational Sciences Institute predoctoral fellowship.

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Professors of physics Ani Aprahamian and Michael Wiescher gave invited talks at the celebration of the Brazilian Physical Society’s 45th anniversary celebrations. The meeting took place in Iguassu Falls, Brazil at a joint meeting of the Brazilian societies of Plasma, Materials and Condensed Matter, Particles and Fields, Nuclear, and Applied Physics. The meeting was attended by nearly 3,000 physicists including a number of Nobel laureates from all over the world.

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One of the oldest, continually–funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs in the country, the Physics REU at the University of Notre Dame is marking its 25th year of National Science Foundation funding this summer.

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The first Michael, Marcia, and Christa Parseghian Scientific Conference for Niemann–Pick Type C Research at the University of Notre Dame drew researchers, clinicians and families from around the world. The conference, permanently endowed by the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation, was held June 9–11 in the Jordan Hall of Science.

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Umesh Garg was elected the Vice Chair of the next Gordon Research Conference in Nuclear Chemistry at the 2011 meeting held during June 12–17, 2011, at the Colby Sawyer College, New London, NH. He will become Chair of the subsequent Conference.

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Morris Pollard, professor emeritus of biological sciences and director of the University of Notre Dame’s Lobund Laboratory, died Saturday (June 18) at Memorial Hospital in South Bend. He was 95 years old.

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Patricia Clark, the Rev. John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C. Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame and Bonnie Berger, professor of applied mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have published a paper this week describing the development of a computer algorithm that accurately predicts which parts of protein sequences help prevent the proteins from aggregating. Protein aggregation leads to numerous human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

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The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has announced that the 2011 Paul Zitzewitz Excellence in Pre–College Physics Teaching Award winner is Stacy McCormack, a high school physics teacher at Penn High School in Mishawaka, IN. This award is in recognition of contributions to pre–college physics teaching and awardees are chosen for their extraordinary accomplishments in communicating the excitement of physics to their students.

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University of Notre Dame astrophysicist Peter M. Garnavich and a team of collaborators have used observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to provide new insights into the evolution of a nearby supernova, “SN 1987A,” the nearest supernova to the Earth in 300 years.

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Gregory P. Crawford, dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, and his wife, Renate, will for the second consecutive year set out on a remarkable bicycle ride this summer to support research seeking treatments and a cure for Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC), a rare and deadly neurodegenerative disease that primarily strikes children before or during adolescence.

The Crawfords will depart June 13 on “Road to Discovery,” a 2,200-mile ride from Boston to Dallas, with stops to visit NPC researchers and families, as well as Notre Dame alumni clubs, along the way.

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