Before the ceremony in Kerr Hall.   See Photo Gallery for more pictures by Craig Bailey.  

Contents
(scroll down for details)

Barnett Institute Alumni Fellowship Award: 
  Jim Glick

Douglas and Irene DeVivo Award: 
  Susan Shiavo, Majlinda Kullolli, Cheryl Lu.  

Gustel and Ernst Giessen Memorial Fund Awards :  
  Haitao Jiang, Shugui Chen, Haijiang Peng, Alan Galiwango, Dongdong Wang 

Academic Excellence Award:  
  Shugui Chen 

Barnett Institute Service Award: 
  William O'Neill, Fiscal Officer, Barnett Institute

Barnett Institute Service Award (External): 
  Ruthann Stiles, Director-Academic Fiscal Affairs, Provost's Office.

The Awards
(photos by Craig Bailey)

Barnett Fund for Innovative Research
Tomas Rejtar, Research Associate Professor 

John N. Hatsopolous Research Scientist Awards

Marina Hincapie is a Research Associate Professor working closely with Prof's  Karger and Hancock, and a lead investigator on the antibody proteomics project.  
   "It is unprecendented that anyone has won this award for two years running. All I can say is ... FIREBALL."

Thomas Wales (Prof. Engen's group)  has shown that the HIV Nef protein from "long-term nonprogressors" -- HIV-positive individuals that do not progress to AIDS -- does not have the same conformation as the laboratory strains that have been crystallized.  That story is being published, following a few follow-up experiments and it is also leading to another R01 proposal in which Dr. Wales will be the Co-PI.

Barnett Institute Alumni Fellowship Award

Jim Glick  (Vouros Group)  undertook totally on his own to put together a cell culture facility to make the Institute self-sufficient in this regard. He has guided five undergraduate students through their senior theses, including one M.Sc. thesis. In this capacity he also generated external funding for some of that work in collaboration with Harvard Medical School. He has followed that up with an independent grant application to DOD.  Based on the cell culture studies pursued by Jim, the Vouros group was in position to submit a major proposal to the Philip Morris Foundation.

Douglas and Irene DeVivo Awards

Majlinda Kullolli (Hancock Group)  developed the MLAC column materials for HPLC, and performed the colon cancer study for the NCI.

Susan Shiavo (Vouros Group) - Susie has been tackling the difficult problem of interfacing of HPLC with both MS and electrochemical detection parallel, for metabolomic applications. The project is now working, She recently presented a paper at ASMS and is now nearly done with a manuscript.

Cheryl Lu  (Hancock Group).  Cheryl has performed excellent research on the pharmakokinetic measurement of therapeutic antibodies by mass spectrometry, in the collaboration with Centocor. This is a very important application for the field of generic biotechnology drugs, and results to date suggest that the MS method can perform better than traditional ELISA methods. 

Gustel and Ernst Giessen Memorial Fund Awards

Dongdong Wang, Haitao Jiang, Dr. Karger, Shugui Chen (George Tan), and Haijiang Peng.  

Haitao Jiang (Hancock Group) - He has performed excellent research in the analysis of biosimilars (generic protein drugs), notably human growth hormone and rTPA (Genentech). Novel insights into deamidation and other PTM's have been obtained as a result of his studies.

Dongdong Wang (Karger Group) has shown exceptional skills in working with biomarker discovery immunoassays.  

Shugui Chen (aka George Tan) ( Engen Group) - He published a paper on his work with the Bcr-Abl tyrosine kinase this last year. A second paper on the internal regulatory mechanisms of this protein is in preparation.

Alan Galiwango (Giessen Group) - An MS Student in the college of computer science, Alan  has been the principal programmer on many of Dr. Giessen's projects applying chemometric methods to economic analysis, and was a major contributor to work for which NU is currently negotiating a license.

Haijiang Peng (Giessen Group) - a postdoc with Dr. Giessen's research program between the college of computer science, and the Barnett Institute,  Haijing, a physicist, has led the program to the success now unfolding. He is enthusiastic, a self-starter, and he gets results.

Academic Excellence Award

Shugui Chen (aka George Tan, Engen Group)

Barnett Institute Service Award

William O'Neill, Fiscal Officer, for exceptional diligence in sorting the complex funding channels to a dozen groups and projects; in keeping up with the moving target of University bureaucracy during a change of administration, and, if this were not enough, taking the initiative to scan and compile onto a CD the archives of Institute history that Beverly Brenner compiled for 18 years.   Hats off to Bill!

Barnett Institute Service Award (External)

Ruthann Stiles, Director-Academic Fiscal Affairs, Provost's Office.  

Unlike most Institutes, the Barnett reports directly to the provost, rather than a college.  Ruth Ann has facilitated these interactions, marked by friendship and sincere interest in the Institute, and in the people around her.  She is a treasure at the university, and it is a great pleasure to recognize her before the Institute, and her husband, a cell biologist who has come from the Dana Farber to be with us today. 

  See the Photo Gallery for more pictures.