The Westchester Chemical Society had four excellent meetings in Westchester in 2006. The subsection moved its meetings between Polytechnic University in Hawthorne, NY and Pace Pleasantville, NY in order to entice more members to attend our programs.

Dr. Hodel is the CEO of AIDSfree Africa. The presenter spent a month in an orphanage in the slums of Nakuru, Kenya and two months at the Mezam Polyclinic in Bamenda, North Wet Province, Cameroon, West Africa learning about HIV/AIDS in Africa and the problems associated with trying to manufacture pharmaceuticals to treat the disease from a Chemist’s perspective. What is really going on? Why does Western intervention have so little success in stemming the epidemic? With the World Health Organization’s failed 3 by 5 initiative (3 by 5 stands for 3 million people in Sub-Sahara Africa on antiretroviral drugs by 2005), where do we go from here? What is the perspective of industrial production of drugs, essentials and antiretrovials?

Over 30 attended this presentation, including students from Polytechnic University.
We have been very fortunate to have Professor Mary Cowman of Polytechnic make the arrangement at Polytechnic. Dr. Cowman is a director for Westchester.

Our Distinguished Scientist Award was presented to Dr. Richard M. Goodman, President of Richard M. Goodman Consulting LLC.

Dr. Goodman’s presentation was titled: “A Primer on the Fascinating Process of Offset Lithographic Printing.” The offset lithographic process for printing is a fascinating process. In particular, offset lithography is based on one of the oldest chemical discoveries: that oil and water don’t mix (or do then?). Throw in a little surface science, polymer science, and most of all today, computer science and voila! Desktop publishing and direct computer to plate (alias CTP) technology. The chemistry behind the offset lithographic process will be briefly discussed and practical examples of all sorts of printing outputs will be described. From this talk we learned that basic chemistry of the lithographic process, press design features and, most particularly, the design of the lithographic printing plate and CTP technologies. Also included was a brief visit into the future of printing.

At the end of Dr. Goodman’s presentation, Salute to Excellence Awards were awarded to Dan DeLuca of Pace Pleasantville, who was our contact for arranging these dinners. The other recipient was Dr. John Weisburger, who suggested many of our Distinguished Scientists. Dr. Weisburger is a member of ACS for over 55 years.

Achievement Awards for Outstanding Scholastic Performance in First Year College Chemistry are presented to first year college chemistry students who will be pursuing a major in science. Schools attending the Program and Dinner were Westchester Community College, Bronx Community College, Marymount College of Fordham University, Pace Pleasantville, Iona College, College of Mt. St. Vincent, Rockland Community College, Manhattan College, College of New Rochelle, Sarah Lawrence College, Manhattanville College, and SUNY-Purchase.

Over 75 attended this program and dinner. Dr. Joseph Skrivanek of SUNY-Purchase has been our contact with the local colleges. The students were presented with an ACS certificate and a CD of the Encyclopedia of Chemistry and Physics.

The presentation is about one of the world’s most sensitive biosensors which Dr. Teraoka has been developing over the past several years. The biosensor uses a transparent glass sphere of a diameter of less than 1 mm, which can house highly monochromatic light that travels along the interior side of the glass surface by total internal reflection. The surface of this sphere is modified with a ligand. When a biomolecule with a receptor attaches to the ligand, the orbit of the monochromatic light becomes slightly longer, which can then be detected as a shift of the wavelength. This sensing scheme detected, with extremely high sensitivity, non-specific adsorption of proteins, hybridization of DNA, and adsorption of antigens to immobilized antibodies. It is predicted that biosensors will be able to detect a single molecule of insulin without the necessity of fluorescence labeling.

Dr. Teraoka earned his Ph.D at the University of Tokyo. After postdoctoral appointments at the IBM Almaden Research Center and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Teraoka has been teaching chemistry at Polytechnic University. His research has been in the fields of polymer solutions and polymer chromatography. He is now concentrating on photonic biosensors. He is the author of a textbook, “Polymer Solutions: introduction to Physical Properties” Wiley 2002.

We had approximately 50 attendees for this program.

Spores are the most environmentally resistant organism known in nature. The paradoxical feature of dormant spores is that, being insensitive to environmental insults and metabolically inactive. They permanently monitor the external environment permanently in order to trigger germination in the presence of a specific, nutrient, i.e., the ‘spore life’ is a balance between stabilization factors and germination effectors, and this balance is not static-;spores reveal changes in physico-chemical properties with time.

Sergey earned his Ph.D at the Moscow State University in Russia.