Come and join us for a picnic! Main dish will be catered by Southern Craft, and we will have a vegetarian option available. Families are welcome to join us, and we would love to have you RSVP so we can get an accurate count. Please bring a dessert or side to share. See you in the park!

As summer winds down, the Executive Committee is gathering information about our upcoming September picnic get together and future programming.  Please take just three minutes to take this survey and let us know how our local section can better serve you.  

Each year, TVHS hosts a National Chemistry Week Event at Eastman.  This year the event will take place the week of October 27-29.  If you are available to help or are interested in hearing more about the event, please contact us here.  We are specifically looking for a Demo Coordinator and Industry Booth Coordinator.  

We are also looking for someone to chair the coordination of the event for next year.  If you are interested in this, please let us know and you can even learn all the tips and tricks alongside our current chair this year.  

This is always a stellar event, and one that we would love for you to participate in as an Eastman employee, retired member, or academic member (bring your students to volunteer!).  Thank you for your consideration of this important event!

Saturday, April 26, 2025
9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Culp Center, ETSU, Johnson City
Annual Upper East Tennessee Science Fair
Offers competition for Regional
Schools in Grades: 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
Judges are needed for Prizes offered by NETS-ACS
specifically for Chemistry themed projects
BUT ALSO
Judges are needed for General Prizes sponsored by
Kiwanis Club of Johnson City in Physical Science and
Biological Science categories
CONTACT for Judge coordination: Gary Henson
hensong@etsu.edu
423-439-6906

The Virginia Section of the ACS invites allVirginia two-year and four-year schools to join us for a forum / information session about establishing Laboratory Safety Teams (LSTs) at these institutions on Friday, October 18, from 4:30-6:00 PM EST. In partnership with the ACS Office of Safety Programs, the Virginia Section of the ACS will be facilitating this hybrid session at the J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, VA.

LSTs are communities of graduate students and postdoctoral associates that promote a bottom-up approach to safety cultures, empowering members to propose solutions to safety-related issues.

The purpose of our session will be to further acquaint faculty and students with the concept of LSTs and explore how to initiate such student-led communities at their own institutions using the available mechanisms of support. Strengthening student understanding of safety culture and informing them of supportive networks as early in their educational career as possible can only help them to be better scientists in the future!

We hope you can join us to learn more about the LST grassroots movement and how your institution can get involved! Please RSVP and/or address all inquiries about this session to me, Joe Crockett, at jcrocketchem@gmail.com.

This year Marks the 18th year the TVHS-ACS has celebrated Earth Day with the Girl Scouts.

Volunteers are being sought to perform a variety of scientific demonstrations highlighting the chemistry of batteries, e.g. making batteries from Cu/Zn cells, lighting an LED with a battery made from fruit, learning to send morse code with an LED powered by a button battery and copper ribbon plus more. Stations will be set up for hands on demos with groups of Scouts rotating through the various demos. The Scouts range in age from 5 to 13. Materials will be supplied, and volunteers will be trained as necessary.

The event will be held at the ETSU Geosciences Building (Ross Hall) on Saturday, April 20, 2024 from 1:00 PM to 4:30 PM. Volunteers are requested to arrive at 12:00 PM to be trained and help with set up and stay until around 5:00 PM to help clean up.

If interested in volunteering, or for more information, please contact Deborah Wilkinson, TVHS-ACS Chemists Celebrating Earth Week Coordinator by April 1, 2024. For more information and Deborah’s contact information see this flyer.

Please join us in for a seminar given by Dr. Karan Arora, Research Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University on February 22, 2024 at 7:00 PM (Dinner and Social at 6:00 PM). The event will be held in Conference Room 219 at the Toy F. Reid Employee Center in Kingsport (400 S Wilcox Dr, Kingsport, TN 37660).

Abstract

Cancer is one of the most fatal diseases which is becoming a major widespread health issue, affecting a large amount of the population every year. It is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., only behind heart disease. Tremendous progress has been made over the last two decades in cancer treatment and improving the overall survival and quality of life of cancer patients. To enhance the efficacy and minimize the off-target toxicity. I synthesized an arsenal of prodrugs that takes advantage of the different tumor microenvironments in comparison to healthy tissues, to release the active drug selectively in malignant tumor areas and kill them effectively with minimum to no effect on normal cells. The use of local stimuli such as elevated protease levels, lower pH, light, heat, and hypoxic nature is being explored to achieve spatial and temporal control for drug delivery. Incorporating these pro-drugs with stimuli-cleavable linkers enhances their efficacy by increasing their water solubility for systemic administration, improving their circulation half-life, and allowing for selective release of the active drug only at tumor sites.

Other Details

Dinner and social will start at 6:00 PM, catered by Pratts BBQ. The cost of the meal is $15/person (free for students) payable by cash or check (made out to “TVHS-ACS”). You must RSVP to Dane Scott (scottdw@etsu.edu) before the event to ensure adequate catering. There is no cost to attend the presentation only.

The menu will consist of Coke, iced tea, pulled pork sandwiches, vegetable lasagna, chips and queso, and season fruit.

Find more information in the attached flyer.

Please join us on Thursday, October 19th at 5:30 PM EST as Dr. Catherine E. McCusker discusses, “Capturing Sunlight with Earth-Abundant Materials”. Catherine E. McCusker is the 2023 Distinguished Member Awardee.

Abstract

Solar photocatalysis offers a mechanism to harness the sun’s energy and store it in chemical bonds, creating new fuels. While there are many known fuel-forming catalysts based on first-row transition metals, there are few examples of earth-abundant photosensitizers. Metal complexes of dipyrromethene (dipyrrin) ligands have potential as sensitizers for photocatalysis. These ligands possess the intense visible absorption properties of the related porphyrins, while being more synthetically accessible. First row transition metal complexes of dipyrrin ligands are known, but the photophysical properties of these complexes are generally unexplored. In zinc dipyrrin complexes the tetrahedral geometry allows for interligand charge transfer, forming a charge separated (CS) state. In polar environments the CS state is stabilized and quenches the S 1 fluorescence. It is theorized that the CS state also enhances the intersystem crossing (ISC) to the long lived T 1 state. This presentation will quantify the triplet extinction coefficient and quantum yield for a series of zinc dipyrrin complexes in both polar and non-polar solvents to determine if increased CS state formation (as determined by fluorescence quenching) does lead to increased triplet state formation. The complexes have also been used to sensitize carbon dioxide reduction using an iron based carbon dioxide catalyst.

Seminar Information

The TVHS-ACS 2023 Distinguished Member Seminar will be held via Zoom on Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 5:30 PM EDT. Please use the following link to access the seminar: https://american-chemical-society.zoom.com/j/84621841652

A summary of governance issues and actions from the ACS Fall 2023 Meeting in San Francisco, CA can be found here.