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Blog – Page 1349

Is Director, Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response, Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (https://aspr.hhs.gov/Pages/Home.aspx).

The HHS Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) leads the nation’s medical and public health preparedness for, response to, and recovery from disasters and other public health emergencies.
ASPR collaborates with hospitals, healthcare coalitions, biotech firms, community members, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, and other partners across the country to improve readiness and response capabilities.

Dr. Boucher previously held several other critical roles in the organization, including as Chief of the Antivirals \& Antitoxins branch at BARDA’s Anthrax, Botulinum, Ebola and Smallpox therapeutics program office, Acting Director for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response’s Office of Industrial Base Management and Supply Chain (IBM/SC) and serving as HHS’s lead negotiator for product development/procurement agreements for COVID-19 medical countermeasures.

Dr. Boucher has a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Genetics, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of California, Davis.

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Researchers have developed a new method that uses attosecond core-level spectroscopy to capture molecular dynamics in real time.

The mechanisms behind chemical reactions are complex, involving many dynamic processes that affect both the electrons and the nuclei of the involved atoms. Frequently, the strongly coupled electron and nuclear dynamics trigger radiation-less relaxation processes known as conical intersections. These dynamics underpin many significant biological and chemical functions but are notoriously difficult to detect experimentally.

The challenge in studying these dynamics stems from the difficulty of tracing the nuclear and electronic motion simultaneously. Their dynamics are intertwined and occur on ultrafast timescales, which has made capturing the molecular dynamical evolution in real time a major challenge for both physicists and chemists in recent years.

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A detailed study of a reaction between a molecular ion and a neutral atom has implications for both atmospheric and interstellar chemistry.

Reactions between ions and neutral atoms or molecules occur in various settings, from planetary atmospheres to plasmas. They are also the driving force behind rich reaction chains at play in the interstellar medium (ISM)—the giant clouds of gas and dust occupying the space between stars. The ISM is cold, highly dilute, and abundant with ionizing radiation [1]. These conditions are usually unfavorable for chemistry. Yet, more than 300 molecular species have been detected in the ISM to date, of which about 80% contain carbon [2]. Now Florian Grussie at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Germany and collaborators report an experimental and theoretical study of an ion–neutral reaction: that between a neutral carbon atom and a molecular ion (HD+), made of a hydrogen and a deuterium (heavy hydrogen) atom [3, 4]. The study’s findings could improve our understanding of the chemistry of the ISM.

Ion–neutral reactions are fundamentally different from those involving only neutral species. Unlike typical neutral–neutral reactions, ion–neutral reactions often do not need to overcome an activation energy barrier and proceed efficiently even if the temperature approaches absolute zero. The reason for this difference is that, in ion–neutral reactions, the ion strongly polarizes the neutral atom or molecule, causing attractive long-range interactions that bring the reactants together.

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University of Missouri scientists are peering into the past and uncovering new clues about the early universe. Since light takes a long time to travel through space, they are now able to see how galaxies looked billions of years ago.

In a new study, the Mizzou researchers have discovered that spiral galaxies were more common in the than previously thought. The work appears in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“Scientists formerly believed most spiral galaxies developed around 6 to 7 billion years after the universe formed,” said Yicheng Guo, an associate professor in Mizzou’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and co-author on the study. “However, our study shows spiral galaxies were already prevalent as early as 2 billion years afterward. This means galaxy formation happened more rapidly than we previously thought.”

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A study led by Nagoya University in Japan revealed that a simple thermal reaction of gallium nitride (GaN) with metallic magnesium (Mg) results in the formation of a distinctive superlattice structure. This represents the first time researchers have identified the insertion of 2D metal layers into a bulk semiconductor.

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A trio of physicists at Sorbonne Université, in France, has observed a thermoelectric effect between two liquid materials for the first time. In their study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Marlone Vernet, Stephan Fauve and Christophe Gissinger put two types of liquid metals together at room temperature and subjected them to a heat gradient.

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