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Department Research Interests

1) T. Avis – Food microbiology, chemistry, and biochemistry:

Present projects focus on interdisciplinary studies on novel antimicrobial compounds that are safe and efficient alternatives to synthetic chemical pesticides including:

Techniques include:

Other projects in food chemistry include:

Identification and characterization of bioactive, nutraceutical, and other functional compounds from plants, yeasts, and mushrooms

2) S. Barry –  Inorganic Synthetic Chemistry and Thin Film Deposition

My lab is interested in the development of Atomic Layer Deposition as a tool for nanotechnology. Several projects are available in my labs:

  1. Precursor Design and Testing – We are interested in the deposition of metals: aluminum, titanium, nickel, copper, silver, and gold, to name a few. A typical project would be to design or improve on the design of a compound of the desired metal with a heteroleptic ligand system. Accompanying this would be a series of experiments to explore the thermal chemistry of the compounds, and determine their feasibility as vapour-phase ligands for deposition.
  2. Thin Film Deposition – Using known precursors designed in our laboratory, a typical project would involve the development of a thin film deposition process either by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) or by atomic layer deposition (ALD). Process characteristics such as growth rate, deposition temperature, self-limiting behaviour, as well as film characteristics such as morphology, composition, thickness, and conformality would be investigated using advanced techniques.
  3. Mechanistic Studies – We want to understand exactly how a species reacts to elevated temperature, to determine whether our precursor design is working the way we intended. By using a set of careful thermolysis techniques, and potentially reaction coordinate modeling by computational chemistry, a typical project will follow a compound through its thermolysis mechanism to its target material. These projects are often undertaken with Gino DiLabio (from the National Institute of Nanotechnology in Edmonton) as a co-supervisor.

3) A.D.O. Bawagan – Computational Studies of Interactions of Synchrotron Radiation with Materials

  1. Synchrotron X-ray Radiation Diffraction from Fibers and Source Diagnostics
  2. Characterization of Terahertz (THz) Radiation from Synchrotron Storage Rings
  3. Modelling Intense Radiation Effects on Materials”

4) P.H. Buist –   Bioorganic Chemistry/Biotechnology

Our current area of focus is the mechanistic investigation of metalloenzymes which oxidize unactivated carbon-hydrogen bonds. This chemistry is of general interest because it impacts on many diverse areas of biological function including metabolism of pharmaceuticals, bioremediation of contaminated soils, cold adaptation, production of unsaturated lipids by plants and insect pheromone biosynthesis. We are developing new mechanistic probes and new analytical methodologies to complement recent advances in molecular biology which has permitted the overproduction of previously inaccessible enzymes. Our ultimate goal is to engineer these biocatalysts in order to meet specific biotechnological requirements.

CHEM 4908 projects would typically involve synthesis of mechanistic probes followed by incubation of these substrate analogues with enzymes and characterization of the products by GC-MS and/or NMR.

5) R.C. Burk  – Supercritical Fluid Extraction

Three research projects are underway. The first involves the use of supercritical fluids to extract or solubilize both organic and inorganic substances. A variety of methods are being used to quantify the analytes including GC, GC/MS, HPLC and spectroscopic.

The second project is concerned with the interaction of C02 with water at high pressures. The chemistry gathered from this project will be useful when using C02 as an extractant for species in water.

A third project is investigating the development of an improved analytical method for haloacetic acids in water using SPME.

6) R.J. Crutchley – Physical Inorganic Chemistry

Current research projects in my group apply our knowledge of coordination chemistry to the design of hybrid, inorganic/organic polymers with electronic or sensor applications. Two main projects can be described.


  1. Design of a Molecular Photo-Switching Device. Charge-transfer complexes can be covalently bound to polymer materials to create NLO (non-linear optical) materials.



  2. Design of a Sensor Material. The excited state of certain complexes can be quenched by the presence of oxygen. When these complexes are bound to a polymer and painted on the surface of a plane (or car, propeller, .etc), irradiation of the surface during a wind tunnel experiment will give a global profile of the surface’s aerodynamics.


7) M.C. DeRosa – Bioinorganic Chemistry

My group seeks to develop sensors, structural probes, and catalysts based on chemically-modified DNA and RNA aptamers, single-stranded oligonucleotides that bind with remarkable affinity and specificity for a selected target. CHEM 4908 projects in my lab will draw on inorganic, organic, and nucleic acids chemistry. Three main research themes are outlined below.

1) Aptamer-based sensors. Novel chemically-modified oligonucleotides will be examined for use in electrochemical biosensors. Sensors will be prepared using redox-active aptamer conjugates tethered to an electrode surface. These platforms will allow the structural changes associated with molecular recognition to be transduced into an electrochemical signal.

2) Luminescence- and reactivity-based oligonucleotide structural probes. An understanding of the changes in aptamer structure upon target binding is paramount in biosensor and therapeutics development. Changes in oligonucleotide conformation upon target binding will be examined using the emission of luminophore-DNA conjugates as a structural probe. A second family of structural probes will be developed based on the release of a leaving group upon target binding.

3) DNA nanotechnology: DNA “nanomachines” based on pH sensitive DNA structures are being developed in our lab. Projects in this area would involve the synthesis and study of fluorophore-labelled DNA sequences for FRET measurements.

8) Farah Hosseinian – Functional foods and nutraceuticals

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Antioxidants, anti-inflammatory and anti-stress of bioactives in foods and human health, environmentally friendly extraction techniques

Projects are:

Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity of wheat, rye and triticale bran

Antioxidant activity in food and cell membrane

Anti-inflammatory activity using cell culture containing inflammation lines

Prebiotic/Probiotic activity of cereals, oilseeds and berries in dairy products, mainly yoghurt

9)  Anatoli Ianoul- Nanotechnology

In my research group we develop, investigate and apply novel plasmonic nanomaterials. Specifically:

10) E.C.P. Lai – Analytical Chemistry of Nanomaterials by Coating with Polymers 

  1. Preparation and characterization of magnetic nanoparticles with molecularly imprinted polymer (polyaniline, polyfuran, polyindole, polycarbazole, polyazulene, polythiophene) coating for solid phase extraction.
  2. Polyvinyl pyrrolidone coating on nanoparticles for detection and water purification.
  3. Multifunctional biocompatible coatings on magnetic nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery.
  4. Evaluation of biological toxicology kits with nanomaterials.
  5. Evaporative light scattering detector for nanomaterial analysis.

11) J.M. Manthorpe  – Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Research focuses on the development of new asymmetric methods involving heteroatoms and the synthesis of biologically and structurally interesting natural and unnatural products. For more information see his website at http://http-server.carleton.ca/~jmanthor/Home.html

12) J.D. Miller – Biological Chemistry

Research concerns the production, isolation, biochemistry and toxicity of secondary metabolites from fungi found in crops, conifer needles and on building materials as well as human antigens in the latter group. 

13) J. Smith – Mass spectrometry-based biomolecule analysis

The Smith lab uses mass spectrometry as a tool to probe the dynamics of proteins and lipids (“proteomics” and “lipidomics” respectively). The laboratory is equiped with hybrid quadrouple time of flight and hybrid triple quadrouple linear ion trap mass spectrometers coupled to high performance liquid chromatographs as well as other instrumentation for sample preparation. At present we are developing novel microfluidic-based methods for protein and lipid quantitation and applying these to study the pathology of cancer and stroke.  For more details, visit www.carleton.ca/~jsmith.

14) K.B. Storey – Enzymes: Kinetics and Structure

Enzymes : Kinetics and Structure

Our lab studies enzyme catalysts and the post translational modification of enzymes by protein kinases. We use spectrophotometric, fluorometric, and colorimetric assays at the bench coupled with gene technology/protein expression approaches. Related projects include Bioinformatics analysis ( BLAST databases) to analyze biochemical pathway regulation. See our work at : http://www.carleton.ca/~kbstorey

and View my ISI Highly Cited profile: http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/author.cgi?&link1=Browse&link2=Results&id=2234

15) P. Sundararajan – Polymer and Composites Morphology

  1. Phase stability and Morphology of Photoactive/ Electro-active Small molecule-Polymer composites: These are applicable to organo-electronic devices such as the photoreceptor, OLED etc.
  2. Morphology of Polymer Composites in a Confined system: We are studying the effect of a hard or a soft surface, such as an overcoat on the morphology of polymer/small molecule systems. These are applicable to multi-layered devices.
  3. Controlling the Morphology of Self-Assembling Systems: Hydrogen bonding, charge- transfer complexes etc lead to self-organization of molecules. Our studies are aimed at controlling the morphology in such self-assembled systems
  4. Structure of Perylene Polyimides: we are studying the structure and morphology of electro-active/photoactive polyimides.
  5. Carbon Nanotube/ Polymer Composites: Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) exhibit remarkable properties. We are developing laboratory-scale methods for producing CNT-polymer composites, study the effect of fabrication methods on the morphology and correlate it to the functional attributes such as the mechanical and electronic properties of the composite.
  6. Molecular simulations of chain folding in polymer systems: The chain folding is a phenomenon that occurs during crystallization of polymers. We are using molecular modeling methods to simulate such chain folding.

16) A. Tsopmo  Food Chemistry, oxidative stress and antioxidants

Current projects focus on the search of novel antioxidant molecules that can be used to prevent oxidative deterioration of foods and to reduce oxidative stress in human.

Digest human milk (HM) with gastric and intestinal enzymes mimicking in vivo conditions, separate the constituents by chromatographic techniques and identified them by mass spectrometry and NMR. Evaluate the ability of compounds to scavenge free radical, chelate metal and prevent lipid peroxidation.

Prepare protein isolates and digest them with enzymes. Separate hydrolysates from enzymatic digests into several fractions using ultrafiltration membrane. Evaluate antioxidant potential of the different fractions.

17) Wayne Wang

Our group is mainly involved in fundamental research in organic optoelectronic materials and devices, which is driven by almost infinite spectrum of functional possibilities and freedom in molecular designs and syntheses. We are particularly interested in three distinct properties, namely chromogenic, photovoltaic and chiroptical properties, of organic near-infrared (NIR) materials having the low-bandgap p-conjugated donor-acceptor chromophore and redox-active meta complexes. For the NIR chromogenic properties, we explore and study the tunable photo-/electroluminescence, electrochromism, photochromism, thermochromism, and piezochromism. The photovoltaic property is targeted specifically within the spectral range of 800-1600 nm, for potential bio-imaging, security ad telecom applications. Some CHEM 4908 projects are listed below and some can be tailor-made for students in biochemistry and other programs upon request (Professor Wayne Wang, wayne_wang@carleton.ca).

18) W.G. Willmore         Protein Chemistry in Response to Low Oxygen

Alteration of protein structure and function by oxygen, in particular, the lack of such alteration under low oxygen (or hypoxic) conditions. Such conditions are commonly encountered by humans at high altitudes, during development, and in clinical conditions such as sleep apnea, hypertension, ischemic (or the cutting off of blood flow) heart disease, acute myocardial infarction, cardiac arrest, cerebrovascular disease (such as stroke), and neurocognitive deficits. Systemic or localized hypoxia affects metabolic pathways, induces angiogenesis (or the formation of new blood vessels), and affects inflammatory responses. Many of the factors that are involved in hypoxia survival are also found to be upregulated in most human tumors. As well as disease, ischemia-associated hypoxia plays a role in tissue damage during organ transplantation as well as preservation. A variety of biochemical and molecular techniques are utilized to look at protein structure/function as well as effects on metabolite levels in living cells.

Projects include:

  1. Role of hydroxylation as an oxygen-dependent post-translational modification of proteins. Examination of the effects of lack of hydroxylation under low oxygen conditions on protein stability, structure and function.
  2. Role of oxygen-derived free radicals in cellular signal transduction under low oxygen conditions.
  3. Protein turnover in response to targeted and non-targeted modification of proteins by oxygen.

19) J.S. Wright – Studies in Drug Design

  1. New drugs targeting breast cancer and prostate cancer.
  2. Improving the prediction of binding affinity between ligand and protein.
  3. New drugs targeting rheumatoid arthritis.
  4. Collaboration and modeling studies with experimental research groups.

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