News | Department of Chemistry

News

February 2023
January 2024
  • Dr. Skellam will be presenting some of the group's research in a short talk at the 4th Synthetic Biology of Natural Products Conference
  • Congratulations to Dr. Sanjeevan Rajendran who was selected to present a short talk at DiscoverBMB 2024
December 2023
  • Check out the group's first pre-print highlighting the work of Sharmila Neupane and Marcelo Amorim: https://www.beilstein-archives.org/xiv/preprints/202362
  • Congratulations to Sydney Schoellhorn who was one of seven awardees for the ACS Pride-Merck Graduate Research Award! Check out her presentation at the ACS Pride Symposium.
  • The group will be presenting research within the Division of Biological Chemistry at the 2024 ACS Spring Meeting in New Orleans; Sydney Schoellhorn will also be presenting her research within the Division of Agriculture and Food Chemistry!
  • Congratulations to Sameera Jayasundara who impressively defended his original research proposal and became the FIRST PhD candidate in the newly established Chemical Biology Division!
November 2023
  • Congratulations to Sameera Jayasundara who was selected as a participant in Nucleate's Activator program! (Update Dec: Sameera is a finalist in the comepition!)
October 2023
  • Congratulations to undergraduate Timothy Lim who recieved the 2023 David R. Redden Memorial Scholarship!
September 2023
  • Congratulations to Lei Li, Md Nazim Uddin Chy, Sanjeevan Rajendran, Sameera Jayasundara, Marcelo Amorim, Sydney Schoellhorn, Nicolas Esnay, Chelsi Wilson, and Joshua Martinez who were selected to present their current and future research at UNT's Scholars Day.

  • Sharmila Neupane and Francis Eze presented their summer research in the BDI seminar after being awarded BDI Summer RA Scholarships
  • We welcome Dr. Nicolas Esnay to the group, who brings a wealth of experience in cellular biology, in particular studing protein-protein interactions in vivo. We're excited to delve deeper into fungal natural products biosynthesis using new techniques!
August 2023
  • Congratulations to Jacob Goralczyk, Timothy Lim, Brandon Marx, Ian Sartor, and Tram Nguyen who all recieved Undergraduate Research Fellowships to continue their research projects in our group this coming academic year!
July 2023
June 2023
  • Congratulations and welcome to Joshua Martinez who received a UNT / NIH G-RISE scholarship to fund his graduate studies.
  • Dr. Skellam and new collaborator Dr. Longo, from the Department of Biological Sciences, are grateful to receive a BDI Seed Grant to investigate the role of transporters in fungal natural products biosynthesis.
  • We welcome new group member Isabelle Ho, a TAMS Early Summer Research awardee, and the return of Jacob Goralczyk who will be working with us this summer
  • Sydney Schoellhorn is featured on BDI'S Investigator Spotlight: https://bdi.unt.edu/sydney-schoellhorn
May 2023
  • A huge congratulations to Sydney Schoellhorn for being awarded a USDA Predoctoral Fellowship - the first time a graduate student at UNT has received this award!
  • Congratulations to both Sharmila Neupane and Francis Eze for being awarded BDI Summer Research Assistantships.
April 2023
  • Congratulations to Timothy Lim who recieved a UNT Honors College Summer Research Scholarship and will be continuing his research project on fungal terpene synthases with us!
  • We are thrilled to receive a research grant from the Welch Foundation to study unusual fungal enzymes!
  • Thank you to UNT for providing some travel funds for Dr. Skellam to present the group's research at the Gordon Research Conference on Enzymes, Coenzymes, and Metabolic Pathways.
  • We welcome Chelsi Wilson as a new graduate student joining the group.
  • Congratulations to Timothy Lim, Ian Sartor, and Tram Nyugen who presented their research from the last two semesters at UNT Scholar's Day!

  • Welcome to our newest group member Dr. Marcelo Amorim who joins us as a Visiting Scholar from Professor Roberto Berlinck's group at the University of Sao Paulo.
March 2023
January 2023
  • Welcome to our newest postdoc Dr. Sanjeevan Rajendran who obtained his PhD from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
December 2022
  • Welcome to our newest recruit, UNT's very own, Dr. Amy Petros
November 2022
  • We welcome three new graduate students to the group: Alondra Silva Leon, Francis Eze, and Md Nazim Uddin Chy!
  • Dr. Lei Li presented her former research at the BDI seminar
October 2022
September 2022
  • Dr. Skellam participated in a TAMS Research Organization Research Symposium and enjoyed meeting many new students interested in research opportunities
August 2022
July 2022
  • Congratulations to new undergraduate group members Ian Sartor, Diego Guerra Alarcon, and Tram Nguyen who received UNT Undergraduate Research Fellowships and will begin work on fungal terpene cyclases this Fall semester
June 2022
  • This summer we welcome five new undergraduates (Sai Pranavi Gummuluru, Andrew Cai, Jay Patel from TAMS; Paras Modha a Chemistry undergrad; and Joci Robinson a visiting NSF REU student) to our group. Very much looking forward to summer research!
  • Dr. Skellam presented at the Canadian Chemistry Conference Exhibition in Calgary, AB.
May 2022
April 2022
  • Congratulations again to Sydney Schoellhorn who won 2nd prize at the ACS DFW Meeting in Miniature: https://chemistry.unt.edu/news/six-unt-chemistry-graduate-students-recei...
  • Dr. Skellam and Dr. Wang (Department of Biological Sciences) recieved a BDI Seed grant and are excited about their new collaboration
  • Kudos to Jordan King who was awarded the COS Summer Research Assistant Award for summer 2022
  • Kudos to Sydney Schoellhorn who was awarded the Chemistry Centennial Celebration Student Endowment
  • Dr. Skellam presented the group's research at Texas Woman's University and enjoyed meeting our TWU neighbours
March 2022
February 2022
  • Congratulations to Arianna Fa and Neha Singaravelan who won first place at the Fort Worth Regional Science Fair in the Microbiology category presenting their research on cytochalasans from filamentous fungi! Not only that they also were designated Best in Fair and will compete in an international competition.
  • Dr. Skellam participated in UNT's Research On Tap event at Armadillo Ale Works to discuss "Fantastic Fungi and Magic Mushrooms": https://research.unt.edu/research-tap
January 2022
  • An update on our progress with investigating Acremonium zeae is featured in Bayer's Grants4Ag Closeout event
December 2021
  • Former work from Leibniz University Hannover on "Engineering Aspergillus oryzae for the Heterologous Expression of a Bacterial Modular Polyketide Synthase" is published in Journal of Fungi: https://doi.org/10.3390/jof7121085
    November 2021
    • We welcome new graduate student Uka Oji. Looking foward to all the great science that will happen in the group.
    • The Skellam group is continuing to grow! We are looking for a postdoctoral research associate with a track record in fungal natural product biosynthesis elucidation and engineering. More information to be found here: https://jobs.untsystem.edu/postings/52283
    • Dr. Skellam presented a general overview of the group's work at the Texas Branch American Society for Microbiology Fall Meeting. It was a great opportunity to learn about all the other interesting microbial work being conducted in Texas.
    • A long-time in preparation review on "Biosynthesis of fungal polyketides by collaborating and trans-acting enzymes" is published in Natural product Reports: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/NP/D1NP00056J
    October 2021
    • Welcome to new group members Sameera Jayasundara and Jordan King. Both are graduate students new to UNT.
    September 2021
    • A huge congratulations to Neha Singaravalan who received a Patel Foundation Scholarship for her summer research in Biology! Neha was involved in Genome mining and developing culture conditions from under-studied fungi.

    • Undergraduate Nancy Dankwah impressed all with her poster presentation at the McNairs Scholars Fall Research Assembly

    August 2021
    • Welcome to new group members Sydney Schoellhorn (grad student), and Kory Punch, James Sheppard, Alice Chelliah (undergraduates).
    July 2021
    June 2021
    • Congratulations and welcome to incoming TAMS students Neha Singaravelan, Arianna Fa and Jane Zhao who were awarded Early Research Scholarships and will participate in an intensive 10 week research program
    • Welcome to McNair Scholar Nancy Dankwah who will be conducting summer research and engineering fungi to produce commercially valuable compounds
    May 2021
    • Sharmila Neupane, a new graduate student has joined the group - Welcome!
    • Welcome to Joshua Martinez who is working as a summer intern on the NSF funded project "Developing a Biomanufacturing Platform for the Site-Selective Functionalization and Structural Diversification of Cytochalasan-Based Carbon Skeletons"
    April 2021
    March 2021
    • Welcome to Kynnedi Sonnier, the first graduate student in the Skellam Group!