Reframing Activism as Leadership.

This chapter discusses trends in activism among students and educators and the leadership concepts inherent in working for social change.

Controlled deposition of structured polymer films: chemical and rheological factors in chitosan film formation.

The technique of "spread coating" has been used to create thin films from solutions of deacetylated and butyl-modified chitosan polymer, and the effect of deposition rate on film thickness has been characterized. Results show that films of controlled thickness can be reproducibly produced and that hydrophobic modification of the polymer can extend the range over which a linear response between film thickness and deposition rate is achieved. Viscometry and fluorescence spectroscopy were also employed to characterize the micellar characteristics of solutions of both deacetylated and butyl-modified chitosan polymer.

Fluorescence characterization of immobilization induced enzyme aggregation.

Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) has been used to show that the average distance between proteins decreases when the protein is immobilized within polymer scaffolds, indicating that the immobilization process is inducing aggregation.

Fluorescence analysis of chemical microenvironments and their impact upon performance of immobilized enzyme.

In this work the shift in fluorescence emission spectra of acrylodan, a polar sensitive fluorophore, has been used to characterize the polarity immediately surrounding cytoplasmic (cMDH) and mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase (mMDH) enzyme immobilized within three-dimensional macroporous chitosan scaffolds. The scaffolds were fabricated from solutions of fluorescently tagged enzymes mixed with deacetylated and hydrophobically modified chitosan polymer. Each solution was frozen and then freeze-dried through the process of thermally induced phase separation (TIPS).

Spatial distribution of malate dehydrogenase in chitosan scaffolds.

In this work, confocal laser scanning microscopy was used to study the spatial distribution of malate dehydrogenase immobilized within three-dimensional macroporous chitosan scaffolds. The scaffolds were fabricated from solutions of native and hydrophobically modified chitosan polymer through the process of thermally induced phase separation. The hydrophobically modified chitosan is proposed to possess amphiphilic micelles into which the enzyme can be encapsulated and retained.