Binghamton University Chemistry Department - Chemistry

Professor Whittingham Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Distinguished Professor M. Stanley Whittingham and two others awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for development of lithium-ion batteries.

The undergraduate program in chemistry offers BA and BS degrees with a BS/American Chemical Society certification option and with BS/emphases in biological and materials chemistry. The graduate program offers MA, MS and PhD degrees for students who are innovative, competitive and highly motivated in the traditional areas of analytical, inorganic, organic and physical chemistry, as well as other relevant interdisciplinary subjects.

DEPARTMENT NEWS

Christof T. Grewer

Professor/Undergraduate Program Chair

Chemistry

cgrewer@binghamton.edu

607-777-3250

SN 1042

Grewer laboratory receives major NIGMS grant

Dr. Grewer's laboratory has been awarded a NIH grant (1 R15 GM135843-01, $450,480, three years) with the title "How to Combat Glutamate Release by Reverse Transport: Mechanistic Studies and Development of Selective Efflux Inhibitors." This grant will support research on the mechanism of how the major excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate is released into the extracellular space in the brain, by reverse transport through glutamate transporters. In addition, new avenues will be explored of how to selectively block glutamate release using pro-drug inhibitors. Glutamate release by neurons is important because glutamate becomes an excitotoxin, when present in the extracellular space of the brain in high concentrations. Such pathophysiological conditions are often encountered after a stroke, when glutamate induces irreversible neuronal cell death. The proposed research aims at understanding the glutamate release process and potentially preventing it through pharmacological intervention.