The Department of Physics and Optical Science is currently seeking two new faculty members to join our team as professors; we are currently seeking candidates who possess a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in optical science, optical engineering, physics, or another closely related field. Preferred candidates will have a significant record of research and publication and a strong commitment to teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The successful candidates will be expected to establish a vigorous, externally funded research program.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities Include:

• Teaching, Advising, Curriculum and Instructional Development – Faculty responsibilities and essential functions with respect to teaching may include but are not limited to: subject matter competence, course design, course presentation, advising and consultation, directing student research, curriculum and instructional development, and grading student work.
• Scholarly Research, Creative, and Other Professional Activities – All tenured and tenure-track faculty are expected to participate in expanding the knowledge base of her/his academic field by conducting research or engaging in other creative activities as appropriate to the faculty member’s discipline. Faculty responsibilities and essential functions with respect to research may include but are not limited to: research/creative activity that generates new knowledge and/or synthesizes and/or integrates existing knowledge, publication, an on-going agenda for research, scholarly, and creative activity, and are expected to seek extramural support for their work.
• Service to University, the Public, and the Profession – All tenured and tenure-track faculty are expected to engage in a program of service appropriate to their discipline. Faculty responsibilities and essential functions with respect to service may include but are not limited to: service to the administration and governance of the University, public service, and service to the profession.

For the full job posting – and to begin your application – please follow this link. Thank you for your interest!

In fall 2021, the University announced it would launch a review of the structure of the College of Liberal Arts & Science (CLAS). A committee led by Belk College of Business Dean Jennifer Troyer assessed the pros and cons of maintaining a single college or reorganizing departments into smaller colleges. Additional discussions and research are planned over the next 10 months to gain greater clarity about costs and implications for all departments in CLAS before a final decision is made about college structure.

In this interim period, a new academic division of four science and mathematics departments will form within CLAS. The division’s creation will address needs the Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, and Physics and Optical Science have expressed for identity, advocacy and research support.

Interim Divisional Dean Named

CLAS Interim Dean John Smail has appointed Bernadette Donovan-Merkert, chair of the Department of Chemistry and director of the Nanoscale Science Doctoral Program, as interim divisional dean, effective Jan. 3, 2023.

Donovan-Merkert will report to Smail, but will have substantial independence, particularly around research support, resource allocation, internal collaborations with the Division of Research and the Graduate School, and external relations with funding agencies and industry partners. Other division personnel will include a new divisional business officer and a business support associate.

Additional steps during the next 10-month period will include assessing the divisional model, including costs and resources needed in the new division; and analyzing the needs of other CLAS departments and the structures that would best serve them, particularly as they interact with the STEM units. A final decision on college structure is expected in fall 2023.

Top Image: Close-up of panels from a mural illustrating scientific and mathematical concepts, located in the Science Building, 9029 Craver Road

Pinku Mukherjee, who currently is the Irwin Belk Distinguished Professor for Cancer Research and associate dean for research and graduate education in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, will serve as the interim associate provost and dean of the Graduate School effective Jan. 3, 2023, succeeding Tom Reynolds, who will retire after 40 years of service to the institution. 

Mukherjee is a leader in transforming how cancer is diagnosed and treated. She has designed innovative approaches that more accurately detect breast cancer early and is developing targeted therapy and imaging for pancreatic, ovarian and colon cancers. Mukherjee’s groundbreaking cancer research has produced 12 U.S. and international patents and has resulted in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Susan G. Komen Foundation totaling more than $15 million as principal investigator and co-investigator.

In addition, Mukherjee co-founded OncoTab Inc., a UNC Charlotte biotechnology spinoff company that launched its first product (a simple blood test) that aids in the diagnosis of breast cancer for women in which a mammogram fails. The novel antibody has applications in molecular diagnostics and anti-cancer therapeutics and the research is funded by NIH STTR and SBIR grants. OncoTab Inc. has won several awards including one from NCBiotech as well as the grand prize at the Charlotte Venture Challenge.

Prior to serving as associate dean, Mukherjee was chair of the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Before coming to Charlotte in 2008 as the Irwin Belk Distinguished Professor for Cancer Research, she held faculty appointments at Indiana University Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic. 

“We are fortunate to have someone with Dr. Mukherjee’s stature and research experience to step in, lead and advance our University’s high quality graduate research and scholarship,” said Joan Lorden, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “As an effective and supportive mentor, she will continue to encourage our graduate and postdoc students to advance their careers.”

Mukherjee earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Bombay University, India, and master’s and doctoral degrees in applied immunology from the University of London. She completed postdoctoral training at Pennsylvania State University. Mukherjee was the 2018 recipient of the First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal and the 2015 recipient of the O. Max Gardner Award, the highest faculty accolade given by the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina.

An antibody that was invented at UNC Charlotte could be used to curb pancreatic cancer relapse and metastasis, a new UNC Charlotte study has found.

Pancreatic cancer is particularly cruel  — and deadly. While it is the 10th most common type  of cancer, it is the fourth leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the U.S., reflecting its bleak survival rate.

Each November, Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month calls attention to this silent killer. The cancer has very few symptoms, especially in early stages, meaning it often spreads and forms additional tumors before it is diagnosed. This year’s Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, out in October, highlights its grim trends.

Yet, there is hope for improved treatment options. UNC Charlotte researchers are among those leading the search for solutions, including the new research by Mukulika Bose ’22 Ph.D. and collaborators, including Bose’s mentor Pinku Mukherjee, published in the journal Translational Research.

Bose’s groundbreaking research studies TAB004, a patented antibody generated by Mukherjee, who is the Irwin Belk Endowed Professor of Cancer Research and a study co-author.

“We believe,” Bose said, “that this antibody could be used to target cancer cells that remain after surgery on solid tumors, to reduce the cells from colonizing to other organs or tissues. If there is a full-blown tumor, this antibody cannot magically make it vanish. But if there are circulating cancer cells that have detached from the parent tumor and are resistant to chemo and radiotherapy, this antibody can stop these cells from forming secondary tumors.”

Research Targets Secondary Tumors

Patients die due to metastatic secondary tumors more than from primary tumors, making the new study highly impactful. The antibody targets a tumor protein called tMUC1 (t muck one) and blocks its cellular signaling that is critical for tumor progression and metastasis.

“This antibody,” Bose said, “is highly effective at specifically targeting the tumor protein but not the protein that is expressed on normal cells. This is the most novel and significant finding, that it can distinguish between the tumor form of the protein and the protein that is expressed on normal cells.”

Surprisingly, Bose found that the antibody TAB004 was not effective in targeting solid tumors. She instead found that this antibody could precisely target single tumor cells that had just detached from their parent tumor.

To understand why this was happening, Bose turned to the cell biology of normal healthy cells. Epithelial cells form the tissues that make up our organs, mucus membranes, and skin. To maintain the integrity of these structures, cells form a network of proteins called the extracellular matrix. When cells that interact with this matrix need to undergo programmed cell death, they can induce anoikis, as the cells detach from the extracellular matrix and induces programmed cell death. Anoikis translates in Greek to the word homelessness.

Unlike normal epithelial cells, cancer cells acquire resistance to anoikis, Bose said. This means that when cancer cells detach from the extracellular matrix, they avoid cell death. These cells are then free to travel through the circulatory and lymphatic systems to cause havoc elsewhere in the body.

Cancer Cells Undergo Cell Death

“We used the antibody to destroy anoikis resistance and the ability of the ‘homeless cancer cells’ to remain alive after detaching from the primary tumor,” she said. “They then undergo cell death and cannot form a secondary tumor after treatment with the antibody.”

Cancer cells take two shapes, one that is more rounded, and one that has extensions that are sticky due to the presence of the tMUC1 protein. The second shape, with its stickiness, allows them to grip onto the surface of tissues and organs, somewhat like suction cups. The study found that the antibody TAB004 attaches to the tMUC1 protein and stops the cells from taking the shape with extensions.

“Cells in their rounded shape are not able to grip anywhere,” Bose said. “After a few days of treatment with the antibody, the extended cells round up and finally die.”

Treatment with the antibody showed significant reduction of tumor growth in mouse models. Besides pancreatic cancer, the antibody can target the tMUC1 protein in breast, ovarian and liver cancer cells.

Other possible applications for this antibody as a therapeutic agent include using it in combination with chemotherapy drugs and and as a targeted agent with nanoparticles.  More pre-clinical studies, including more mouse models, are needed before the research could move to clinical trials, but this study moves the research closer to the goal of clinical trials.

Researcher Seeks To Outwit Cancer

“My hope,” Bose says, “is that we can outsmart cancer and tame it down to a chronic disease. We should be able to extract the fear from people’s minds, that scientists and physicians together have worked to such a degree that people don’t think it’s the end of the world. That is what motivates me.”

After defending her doctoral thesis in June, Bose joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow. While at Charlotte, Bose was awarded the 2022 Phi Kappa Phi Dissertation Fellowship, as one of ten students selected nationally for this award and the first student to receive it at Charlotte.  

In addition to Bose and Mukherjee, other study authors are Alexa Sanders, Chandrav De, Ru Zhou, Priyanka Lala, Sophia Shwartz, Bhaskar Mitra and Cory Brouwer. 

Through innovative research in computational life sciences and health bioinformatics, UNC Charlotte researchers from diverse fields collaborate to prevent and combat threats to human health, reduce health disparities and increase ecosystem vitality. 

Words: Lynn Roberson | Images: Courtesy of Bose and Adobe Stock

An antibody that was invented at UNC Charlotte could be used to curb pancreatic cancer relapse and metastasis, a new UNC Charlotte study has found.

Pancreatic cancer is particularly cruel  — and deadly. While it is the 10th most common type  of cancer, it is the fourth leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the U.S., reflecting its bleak survival rate.

Each November, Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month calls attention to this silent killer. The cancer has very few symptoms, especially in early stages, meaning it often spreads and forms additional tumors before it is diagnosed. This year’s Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, out in October, highlights its grim trends.

Yet, there is hope for improved treatment options. UNC Charlotte researchers are among those leading the search for solutions, including the new research by Mukulika Bose ’22 Ph.D. and collaborators, including Bose’s mentor Pinku Mukherjee, published in the journal Translational Research.

Bose’s groundbreaking research studies TAB004, a patented antibody generated by Mukherjee, who is the Irwin Belk Endowed Professor of Cancer Research and a study co-author.

“We believe,” Bose said, “that this antibody could be used to target cancer cells that remain after surgery on solid tumors, to reduce the cells from colonizing to other organs or tissues. If there is a full-blown tumor, this antibody cannot magically make it vanish. But if there are circulating cancer cells that have detached from the parent tumor and are resistant to chemo and radiotherapy, this antibody can stop these cells from forming secondary tumors.”

Research Targets Secondary Tumors

Patients die due to metastatic secondary tumors more than from primary tumors, making the new study highly impactful. The antibody targets a tumor protein called tMUC1 (t muck one) and blocks its cellular signaling that is critical for tumor progression and metastasis.

“This antibody,” Bose said, “is highly effective at specifically targeting the tumor protein but not the protein that is expressed on normal cells. This is the most novel and significant finding, that it can distinguish between the tumor form of the protein and the protein that is expressed on normal cells.”

Surprisingly, Bose found that the antibody TAB004 was not effective in targeting solid tumors. She instead found that this antibody could precisely target single tumor cells that had just detached from their parent tumor.

To understand why this was happening, Bose turned to the cell biology of normal healthy cells. Epithelial cells form the tissues that make up our organs, mucus membranes, and skin. To maintain the integrity of these structures, cells form a network of proteins called the extracellular matrix. When cells that interact with this matrix need to undergo programmed cell death, they can induce anoikis, as the cells detach from the extracellular matrix and induces programmed cell death. Anoikis translates in Greek to the word homelessness.

Unlike normal epithelial cells, cancer cells acquire resistance to anoikis, Bose said. This means that when cancer cells detach from the extracellular matrix, they avoid cell death. These cells are then free to travel through the circulatory and lymphatic systems to cause havoc elsewhere in the body.

Cancer Cells Undergo Cell Death

“We used the antibody to destroy anoikis resistance and the ability of the ‘homeless cancer cells’ to remain alive after detaching from the primary tumor,” she said. “They then undergo cell death and cannot form a secondary tumor after treatment with the antibody.”

Cancer cells take two shapes, one that is more rounded, and one that has extensions that are sticky due to the presence of the tMUC1 protein. The second shape, with its stickiness, allows them to grip onto the surface of tissues and organs, somewhat like suction cups. The study found that the antibody TAB004 attaches to the tMUC1 protein and stops the cells from taking the shape with extensions.

“Cells in their rounded shape are not able to grip anywhere,” Bose said. “After a few days of treatment with the antibody, the extended cells round up and finally die.”

Treatment with the antibody showed significant reduction of tumor growth in mouse models. Besides pancreatic cancer, the antibody can target the tMUC1 protein in breast, ovarian and liver cancer cells.

Other possible applications for this antibody as a therapeutic agent include using it in combination with chemotherapy drugs and and as a targeted agent with nanoparticles.  More pre-clinical studies, including more mouse models, are needed before the research could move to clinical trials, but this study moves the research closer to the goal of clinical trials.

Researcher Seeks To Outwit Cancer

“My hope,” Bose says, “is that we can outsmart cancer and tame it down to a chronic disease. We should be able to extract the fear from people’s minds, that scientists and physicians together have worked to such a degree that people don’t think it’s the end of the world. That is what motivates me.”

After defending her doctoral thesis in June, Bose joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow. While at Charlotte, Bose was awarded the 2022 Phi Kappa Phi Dissertation Fellowship, as one of ten students selected nationally for this award and the first student to receive it at Charlotte.  

In addition to Bose and Mukherjee, other study authors are Alexa Sanders, Chandrav De, Ru Zhou, Priyanka Lala, Sophia Shwartz, Bhaskar Mitra and Cory Brouwer. 

Through innovative research in computational life sciences and health bioinformatics, UNC Charlotte researchers from diverse fields collaborate to prevent and combat threats to human health, reduce health disparities and increase ecosystem vitality. 

Words: Lynn Roberson | Images: Courtesy of Bose and Adobe Stock

The research of Associate Professor Dr. Menelaos Poutous has recently been highlighted by The International Society for Optics and Photonics due to the valuable insights it offers surrounding the fabrication of diffraction gradings. The paper, published by Dr. Poutous and Dr. Hanshin Lee of the University of Texas at Austin in October of this year, is titled “Reactive ion plasma etched surface relief gratings for low/medium/high resolution spectroscopy in astronomy.” As SPIE explains,

“Today, astronomers seek to observe the faintest and most distant objects possible. Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), with apertures in the order of several dozen meters, are the next generation facilities to do so. However, building larger telescopes is only one part of the equation. The other part is the capability of detecting the gathered photons in the most efficient way possible. This is where making all other optical components in astronomical instruments more efficient becomes crucial. One essential component used in modern astronomical science is the diffraction grating. Its role is to spatially spread incoming light into its constituent frequencies, similar to how a glass prism does. Thanks to a precisely engineered structure that leverages the wave-like nature of photons, diffraction gratings can separate light of different wavelengths with very high resolution. When coupled with a telescope and a spectrometer, gratings allow scientists to analyze the spectral properties of celestial bodies.

Motivated by the somewhat stagnant progress made in grating technology over the past decade, researchers Hanshin Lee of the University of Texas at Austin and Menelaos K. Poutous of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA, focused on a completely different way of fabricating diffraction gratings. In their paper, […] they report their success on manufacturing proof-of-concept high-efficiency diffraction gratings using reactive ion-plasma etching (RIPLE), a plasma-based manufacturing technology normally used for semiconductors.”

Dr. Poutous first joined the Department in 2008 as the Senior Scientist of the Microphotonics Laboratory at the Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications, and he co-founded the Optical Structured Surfaces Lab in 2013. His research interests include spectroscopy, diffractive micro-optical elements, and artificial optical surfaces and coatings, among other research areas, and he has published more than ninety-five papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings.

Click here to see the original news highlight of the paper on SPIE’s website

Congratulations to Michelle Pass on being named a 2022 recipient of the Excellence in Leadership award by the UNC Charlotte Alumni Association and the Black Alumni Chapter. In recognition of her accomplishments, she will be honored at an Excellence in Leadership Awards Luncheon on Friday, October 21 at the UNC Charlotte Marriott Hotel and Conference Center. Dr. Pass is the Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion for the Department of Biological Sciences. She is a long-time senior lecturer, academic advisor, and lab coordinator.

In recognition of her accomplishments, she will be honored at an Excellence in Leadership Awards Luncheon on Friday, October 21 at the UNC Charlotte Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.

Dr. Danillo Augusto is the winner of the 2022 Early Career Investigator Award of the American Society for Histocompatibility & Immunogenics and its Science & Technology Initiatives Committee (STIC) The aim of the ASHI Early Career Investigator Award (ECIA) is to identify future research leaders who are committed to conducting impactful basic science research. This program offers ASHI members an award of up to $40,000 for research related to immunogenetics in various clinical disciplines such as transplantation, cancer, autoimmunity, infectious disease, disease association, or pharmacogenomics. Dr. Augusto will receive his award on October 25, 2022 at the ASHI Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, NV.

Congratulations to Dr. Sharon Bullock who was selected to participate in the training program of the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP). There were only 20 spots for participants in the ISEP-AHEA academy from around the U.S. Dr. Bullock will attend a training institute this Fall 2022 and then work to create a Global Network Learning course for Spring 2023. UNC Charlotte is a member of ISEP — a consortium of universities that allow for exchange of students between institutions. ISEP partnered with an organization called AHEA (American Higher Education Alliance) to create GNL/COIL opportunities between the ISEP member institutions. The ISEP-AHEA academy will first train participants on how to do a GNL/COIL course.

The Charlotte community mourns the Sept. 12 death of UNC Charlotte Botanical Gardens Director Emeritus Thomas Lawrence (Larry) Mellichamp ‘70, known by many affectionately as Dr. M.

Mellichamp joined the faculty of what was then the Department of Biology (now Biological Sciences) in 1976 after completing a doctoral degree at the University of Michigan. He had earned a bachelor’s degree from UNC Charlotte in 1970, and was active in the development of the Botanical Gardens even as an undergraduate student.

An expert on native wildflowers, trees, shrubs, and carnivorous plants, Mellichamp gave hundreds of talks, taught thousands of students and community members, wrote technical and general audience articles on plants and gardening, and wrote or co-authored six books that serve novice and advanced gardeners, including perhaps the best known, “Native Plants of the Southeast.”

Among his many honors, Mellichamp, who retired in 2014 after almost four decades as director of the Botanical Gardens, was the seventh person ever to receive the prestigious Flora Caroliniana Award from the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

Other honors included the Association of Southeastern Biologists Teaching award, the Tom Dowd Award from the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, and the International Carnivorous Society Lifetime Achievement award.

Throughout his career, he collaborated with many others to transform the Botanical Gardens into a site for active teaching and learning, and a place of beauty and respite for people on campus and in the broader community. He remained active with the Botanical Gardens following his retirement, providing expertise at the annual plant sales, teaching classes, and offering support in many other ways.

All are invited to leave a tribute on a memorial website. His obituary was lovingly written by daughter Audrey Mellichamp and longtime colleague Paula Gross. A public memorial service will take place in the Botanical Gardens the afternoon of Sunday October 30; details will be posted on the Gardens website as they are available. Memorial donations may be sent to the Foundation of the Carolinas for the Mellichamp Garden Staff Enrichment Fund, 220 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC 28202.