Wisconsin Local Section member and Associate Director of the Institute of Chemical Education at UW-Madison Andrew Greenberg has created two educational videos in honor of Earth Week! Both can be viewed using the links below:

Earth Friendly Plastics:  https://go.wisc.edu/uh291e

(Re)Cycling Water:  https://go.wisc.edu/8v3o35

More videos and educational materials for all ages are available at the ACS Chemists Celebrate Earth Week website.

Are You a HS Chemistry Teacher? Do You Know Your Local HS Chemistry Teacher?

This is an opportunity to get a grant of up to $750 to attend a chemistry education conference in summer 2020.

The 26^th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) will be held at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon from July 18 to 23, 2020. The Wisconsin Section will sponsor two high school teachers to attend the conference. Details about how to apply are on our Grants page.

The Wisconsin Section sponsored three teachers to attend the 25^th BCCE in summer 2018 and all three found the experience extremely valuable. If you are interested in attending, we urge you to apply; if you know of fellow teachers who might want to attend, please tell them about this opportunity.

The deadline for applications is February 8, 2020. We would love to support teacher attendance at this conference!

NOTE: Even if you can’t attend the BCCE, we invite you to participate in the Wisconsin Section of the ACS. If you are not already a member/affiliate member, you can become an affiliate member of our local section for just $2 per year and receive information about our professional development and social events as well as getting a regular newsletter. Send an email to jwmoore@chem.wisc.edu if you would like to join.

Science on Tap turned out to be a very popular event! It took place on Monday, August 19, in Union South on the UW-Madison campus under the joint sponsorship of Mirus Bio and the ACS Wisconsin Local Section. About 100 people turned out for the early evening event. It began with complimentary beverages (including local beers) and food, giving grad students, post-docs, faculty and staff as well as members of the biotech community a chance to mix and meet each other.

Then it was time for the focus of this series—highlighting how research from various scientific disciplines such as Chemistry, Engineering, Biology, and Genetics can combine to deliver groundbreaking scientific research in our community. This took form in a talk by Dr. Christian Capitini on “The Emergence of CAR-T Cell Therapy”. He shared the latest developments as well as his own research efforts with CAR-T Cells. Capitini is in the Department of Pediatrics, UW School of Medicine and Public Health and Carbone Cancer Center.

See more photos from the event on our Flickr page!

Science on Tap August 2019 event

The Annual Banquet and Awards Ceremony was held on Thursday evening, November 8, at Imperial Garden Chinese Restaurant. Sixty people attended, ranging in age from university undergrads to octogenarians as well as some accompanying children (thus significantly lowering our average age!) In addition to honoring 50-, 60-, and 70-year ACS members, there were ACS Student Excellence Awardees as well as the recipients of ACS awards. The detailed program listing all winners is available here.

The Banquet speaker was Professor Helen Blackwell from UW-Madison Chemistry. Her topic was “Chemical Interception of Bacterial Communication Pathways.”

Abstract: Many bacteria communicate using a chemical language to monitor their population densities in a process called “quorum sensing.” At high cell densities, bacteria use this signaling network to switch from a single cell existence to that of a multicellular community. This lifestyle switch is significant, as it often controls how the bacteria interact with their hosts and other bacterial species. Our research is focused on the development of non-native molecules that can intercept quorum sensing and provide new insights into its role in host/microbe interactions and in the environment. I will introduce our research approach, highlight recent results, and motivate why I believe chemists are poised to make unique contributions to this research area.

In the evening’s program you will also find a listing of the current officers of the Section and information in words and photos about our recent and upcoming activities. Additional photos are on out Flickr page!

During the banquet, the following posters were on display: High School Teacher Scholarship Winners and Crystal Growing Contest; Local Section Social Events from 2018; ACS Hach Scholars.  These illustrate some of our recent activities—as a group and as individuals. If you don’t find yourself included, perhaps you can do something about that: Make Suggestions! Get Involved! Join our next social activity!