A year-end message from Ignacio Martini, Interim Director of the UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center (MIC).
Although 2016 was a challenging year for MIC, marked by the retirement of our long-standing director Dr. Jane Strouse and the tragic passing of our dear colleague Dr. Dafni Amirsakis, we have been fortunate enough to count on incredible support from different members of the department to keep the facility thriving during difficult times.
- The MIC NMR TAs (NanetteJarenwattananon, Nick Knutson, Jeff McCormick and Junyong Kim) worked around the clock during the summer and fall quarters to keep up with the training requirements of the largest ever coming class of graduate students.
- Dr. Bob Taylor was fundamental in organizing the training and maintenance schedules after Jane’s retirement, and he welcomed and guided NMR scientist Dr. Ta-Chung “TC” Ong, the newest member of our community.
- The mass spectrometry lab is still looking for a suitable full time member, but we were lucky to have Neil Quebbemann who took care of training and maintenance of the MALDI spectrometer.
- Recently, Dr. Hui Ding started helping Dr. Greg Khitrov with different aspects of the facility operation, like the development of a new Mass Spec Selection Tool that will soon be available on the MIC website, always efficiently managed by Dr. Smadar Gilboa-Nonacs.
- In the X-ray lab, Dr. Saeed Khan co-authored several high profile publications, as he is always willing to participate in department research projects.
- Safety aspects are always of primary concern, and Dr. Janette Kropat has been working hard to guarantee that we follow the department’s strict safety standards.
2016 has also been a very prolific year for expanding our instrumentation capabilities:
- A new Solid State NMR and a new Quadrupole/Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer were installed and are currently up and running.
- A Triple-Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer and a new SQuID Spectrometer were purchased and will be installed in the MS and Materials divisions in early 2017.
In closing, I would like to emphasize our goal of serving the department’s instrumentation needs and I would like to encourage all members of the department to contact us with their needs, suggestions, and concerns.
Dr. Ignacio Martini
Interim Director
UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center
Photos by Penny Jennings/UCLA Department of Chemistry.
