( i also is an author on four other paper...)Disease diagnosis, biodefense among UH chemical research projects

# Dar-Chone Chow, assistant professor of chemistry, will discuss "Thermodynamics of interactions between glucose and maltose binding protein." His group's poster presents progress toward better understanding of the chemical and physical driving forces of carbohydrate-protein interactions that are important in biological systems.

# Roman S. Czernuszewicz, associate professor of chemistry, will present research on "Resonance Raman spectroscopy of nitrophorins." Nitrophorins are a family of heme proteins found in certain insects that store nitric oxide (NO). Having importance in many areas of human health, NO is useful in lowering blood pressure, treating cancer and increasing oxygen absorption in lung tissue. Czernuszewicz's research is focused on the roles of salivary nitrophorins in storing and releasing NO and binding histamine by using resonance Raman spectroscopic techniques as a probe of molecular structure.

# Yuriy Fofanov, assistant professor of computer science and assistant professor of biology and biochemistry, and Richard Willson, professor of chemical engineering and professor of biology and biochemistry, in addition to several other authors, will focus on "Microarray designs for rapid microbial identification." This research is important because infectious diseases cause 26 percent of global mortality and are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Microbial identification also is important in food safety and biodefense. Traditional culturing and growth-testing methods are being replaced by molecular biology-based methods as genome sequencing advances. This work presents novel DNA-sequence-based methods of sensitive, broadly applicable and false-positive resistant microbial identification.

# George Fox, professor of biology and biochemistry and professor of chemical engineering, and Willson, with several other authors, will p
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Source:University of Houston