Chemists celebrate Earth Day April 24

With 30 volunteers, 12 hands-on activities, and over 600 visitors, the St Louis Section–ACS led its 7th Chemists Celebrate Earth Day at the Saint Louis Science Center on Saturday, April 24, 2010. With a wide variety of activities, we explored and explained the wonderful world of chemistry to our guests of all ages. Organizations helping in this public outreach event included Kids & Chemistry, Maryville University, Monsanto, Neuman Medicinal Laboratories, and Saint Louis University.

The Kids & Chemistry contingent hosted three tables of experiments including Enzyme Activity, Starch Scavenger Hunt, Making Gluep, and Red Cabbage pH Indicator. Leaders Sheryl Loux, Chris Glass, Don Sartor, and Ziad Ramadan were assisted by Ted Gast and Penny Mann.

Mother Nature closed out the event with threatening weather, forcing the remaining volunteers and visitors into the lower level shelter.

Request for nominations for 2011 officers

The St Louis Section of the American Chemical Society requests nominations for officers, directors, councilors, and alternate councilors to stand for election in the Fall of 2010. If you would like to nominate someone, including yourself, for any or all of these offices, please fill in this nominating ballot and mail it, postmarked no later than June 15, 2010 to:

Dr Pat Burrell-Standley
1716 Eldon Ridge Court
Chesterfield, Mo 63017

You may save your entries in the nominating ballot and email the file to the secretary. While it will be difficult to assure your anonymity as a nominator, your identity will be removed before it is forwarded to the Nominating Committee. Email nominations to sec@stlacs.org.

Undergraduate Research Symposium draws wide participation

The American Chemical Society Undergraduate Research Symposium 2010 was hosted by Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville on April 16, 2010. We had 28 poster presentations from SIU–Edwardsville, UM–St Louis, Principia College, and Saint Louis University. External judges selected the following as outstanding poster presentations:

• Haariss Ilyas from Saint Louis University: Thermodynamic Characterization of Naturally Occurring 1x3 Nucleotide Loops, supervisor Dr Brent Znosko
• Kelli Levek from SIU–Edwardsville: Chemical and Thermal Stability of the Calcium-binding domain (CaBD) of NADPH Oxidase-5 (NOX5), supervisor Dr Chin-Chuan Wei

Sixth Annual Section Picnic: still a few spaces left

This is our last opportunity to remind you of the Section picnic. Save the date: June 19th, 12 noon to 5 pm in the Windegger Shelter at Tilles Park, McKnight and Litzsinger in Ladue.

Bring the family! Just $5 per person. Kids under 12 free. Please reserve by June 14th so we can plan for food and drink, and crowd control. Or do it now so you won’t forget. Questions and reservations to:

Bill Doub
1430 Neffwold Ln
Kirkwood, MO 63122-7004
phone: (314) 651-7514
ucr1975@SigmaXi.net

Board of Directors

St Louis Section–ACS Board of Directors meets the second Thursday of each month, usually at the Glen Echo Country Club ( map). Meetings are open to all members, and all are encouraged to attend. Elected officers and chairs of major committees vote on questions put to the Board; others in attendance have voice but no vote.

If you want to attend for dinner, please contact Shelley Minteer, phone 314-977-3624 or email minteers@slu.edu at least a week in advance. Usual cost of the dinner is $20 ($10 for post-docs and unemployed members). Members wishing to become active in section activities are welcomed for their first dinner as guests of the section.

Date: May 13
Social hour: 5:30 pm
Dinner: 6:30 pm
Business meeting: 7:15 pm
Future meetings: Sep 10, Oct 8

Saint Louis University

Seminars start at 12 noon in Lecture Hall 3 (Kelly), except as noted. For more information, contact the Chemistry Department, 314-977-2850.

No seminars are listed for May.

University of Missouri–St Louis

Mondays at 4 pm in 451 Benton Hall, unless otherwise specified. Refreshments 15 minutes prior to seminar time. For more information, contact the Chemistry Department, 314.516.5311.

May 3
23rd Distinguished Alumni Lecture
Barbara Willis Brown, Manager, Student & Special Services, UM–St Louis College of Optometry, Unintended Outcomes

Washington University

Seminars are in McMillen 311 at 4 pm unless otherwise noted. For information, contact Lev Gelb, gelb@wustl.edu.

No seminars are listed for May.

About the Chemical Bond

The Chemical Bond is published at www.stlacs.org January through May and September through December by the St Louis Section–American Chemical Society. If you would like to receive email notification when each issue is posted, you can subscribe to the bond.remind listserv. You can also follow the link to “Manage bond.remind options” from the home page at www.stlacs.org.

If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to our  RSS feed, which includes notices of Chemical Bond issues and timely postings about chemistry-related events in the Saint Louis area.

Editor	Eric Ressner	314.962.6415 editor@stlacs.org
Assistant Editor & Advertising Manager	Sue Saum	314.513.4808 ssaum@stlcc.edu
Business Manager	Donna Friedman	314.513.4388 dfriedman@stlcc.edu