School of Humanities and Sciences
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Lynette Cegelski
Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Chemistry and Professor, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch in the Cegelski laboratory is driven by the need to uncover and define the chemistry that underlies outstanding challenges in human health, the environment, and sustainability. Beyond discovery, we use chemistry as a tool to innovate and create solutions to these pressing problems. The laboratory is highly interdisciplinary, designing experimental approaches to understand how complex biological systems are built, organized, and controlled, and then perturb and influence assembly processes. The lab develops new methods and uniquely leverages: (1) small molecules in new biochemical assay development, chemical genetics approaches, and therapeutic discovery in infectious diseases, (2) fluorescence and electron microscopy coupled to analytical HPLC, mass spectrometry, and complementary biochemical techniques, and (3) spectroscopy, particularly solid-state NMR, to uncover new “dark matter” and define chemistry in insoluble, heterogeneous and complex assemblies relevant to human health, plants, and the ocean.
Long-standing efforts in the laboratory focus on defining mechanisms underlying bacterial biofilm formation and identifying new antibiotic and anti-virulence strategies, including advancing therapeutic candidates for the most difficult-to-treat infections. Through these efforts, we uncovered a new chemical structure in nature: phosphoethanolamine (pEtN) cellulose. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on earth and this discovery provided the first experimental validation of a naturally produced chemically modified cellulose. We are developing alternatively modified celluloses and polysaccharides and advancing new solutions for ecofriendly, sustainably sourced, and recyclable materials. Collectively, our projects span disciplines from molecular structure and assembly chemistry to living microbial communities and natural marine systems, while aiming to translate fundamental discoveries into therapeutic and materials solutions. -
Luther Cox Cenci
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2018
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy dissertation examines the unexpected itineraries, mutations, and afterlives of late imperial Chinese legal culture across the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia during the long 19th century. Empirically, my study uses archives in classical and vernacular Chinese, Dutch, and English and situated in Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, London, and the Hague. Viewed together, they reveal how the communal identities and institutions of Chinese migrants and their descendants were shaped by world-historical forces: the rise of global capitalism and European colonialism, the contest between liberal and pluralist models of law and sovereignty, and the transformation and eventual collapse of the late Qing state.
