Susquehanna Valley Section

April 2003 Meeting

The three hundred and forty-first meeting of the Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society will take place at the University of Scranton. The guest speaker, David Wink, Ph.D. from the NCI, will present a talk entitled Chemical Biology of Nitric Oxide.

A social hour (5:00-6:00 PM) followed by a buffet style dinner (6:00 PM) will be held in Brennan Hall room 509. The entrees will include sole florentine, chicken dijon, and top round of beef. The all-inclusive price is $18 per person. Please send a check in this amount payable to the University of Scranton by Thursday, April 17 to the Chemistry Department (c/o Debbie Jennings), Loyola Hall, University of Scranton, 800 Linden St, Scranton PA, 18510. Contact Dr. Tim Foley (941-7511) or the Department secretary, Debbie Jennings (941-6286), for further information.

Directions

From I-81 Exit 185 (Central Scranton Expressway) Follow the visitor parking signs to campus. You will see the campus on your right. At the first traffic signal, turn right onto Madison Ave. Proceed two blocks and turn right onto Mulberry St. Proceed one block to the five-story parking pavilion. We have special permission to park on the top floor of the pavilion only. Metered street parking is also available.

Chemical Biology of Nitric Oxide

Over the last decade, the role of free radicals and oxidative stress has been shown to be important in a vast number of biological processes. The diatomic molecule nitric oxide (NO) has been shown to participate in a large number of physiological processes ranging from cardiovascular and neurologic to playing essential roles in a variety of immunological responses. This broad range of biological effects has created one of the fastest growing fields in biomedical science. The major determinant for NO effects in vivo is its chemical properties. The chemistry of NO in biological systems is complex, and each reaction has potential deleterious or beneficial effects. To decipher the chemical reactions that may account for the paradoxical effects of NO, we have developed a discussion referred to as the "chemical biology of NO", which is a guide to the chemistry of NO that can take place in vivo.

David A. Wink received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry as a National Research Service Award recipient at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the Laboratory of Comparative Carcinogenesis at the NCI Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center as a staff fellow. He then joined the Radiation Biology Branch at the NCI in 1995, where he received tenure in 1999.