Prof of the Month: Dr. David Zechel and Dr. Gregory Jerkiewicz
Dr. David Zechel
Dr. David Zechel is a Full Professor, Graduate Program Coordinator, and Associate Head at Queen’s University specializing in biological chemistry. Dr. Zechel’s current research interests include studying enzymatic pathways for the breakdown of carbon-phosphate bonds and discovering how to do large-scale enzymatic reactions for the formation of drug molecules to reduce toxic side products.
What is your favourite part about teaching?
My favourite part about teaching is seeing students grow in a particular aspect, especially when they understand a chemical concept and can apply it. I like being able to have students understand a chemical reaction or equation that may have meant nothing to them before, and with the appropriate tools are able to decipher and critique it, almost like learning a new language. For me that's the coolest thing being, being able to see that 'Eureka!' moment.
What are your current research interests?
My research interests are fuelled by genomics. Currently, I’m studying enzymes in the context of making or breaking down interesting molecules, and the strange functional groups and bond connectivity they may form. Essentially, we get a hold of these enzymes, get the reaction working in a test tube and figure out how the reaction proceeds. Specifically, one aspect of my research involves natural and synthetic phosphonates such as Roundup herbicide. I look at how enzymes cleave carbon-phosphate bonds in nature (as they are very stable bonds), and how nature overcame this challenge. From the biosynthetic side, I look at the synthesis of molecules by bacteria. Bacteria can only defend itself by making toxic molecules that are often medicinally useful. An example of this is antibiotics; about 75% of antibiotics are made from bacteria. There is a lot of interest in finding new antibiotics and related molecules, and often these structures are very complicated and have wonderful bond connections. As a synthetic chemist, it is interesting to think of how nature came up with a way to do that.
What is unique about your field of study that has led you to pursue a career in it?
The attraction to using enzymes for chemistry is that they work in water, so they are like a green catalyst and can be used instead of organic solvents and highly reactive or toxic reagents such as certain metal catalysts. Enzymes can do stereospecific reactions, which are difficult to do synthetically. Ideally, the ability to do an enzyme reaction on a large scale that produces a desired specific stereo centre for a drug molecule is useful to decrease toxic side products that may form in synthetic reactions.
Why or how do you think your field is of importance to industry?
In terms of industry, purified enzymes or bacteria with particular enzymes that break things down are important for remediation and cleaning up the environment. For instance, in a situation with brown field that is contaminated with hydrocarbons, naphthalene, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the bacteria may use these compounds as a carbon sources and completely degrade them. Otherwise, without this kind of bacteria, this process can be expensive as the soil has to be taken in trucks to a place where they clean the soil and extract the contaminants before they put it back. The phosphonate research we do is also beneficial in finding enzymes that degrade Roundup (or glyphosate) herbicide due to concerns on its effect on human health because it is so widespread. Glyphosphate, in terms of herbicide design, is the best that chemistry can ever hope to make in terms of lack of toxicity versus specificity; however, it is being overused. We are trying to work on a simple enzymatic pathway that would degrade it into just phosphate. Ideally, we would be able to place this into a plant to resist roundup and also eat it completely. On the biosynthetic side, we are always interested in finding new compounds that are active against cancer and antibiotic activity. We study how enzymes make these interesting structures and finding new drug-like molecules by testing them for bioactivity and determining how they are made.
What advice do you have to offer to students who are considering a career in research?
I would say go for it! Be open to trying new things and follow your heart. Don’t be afraid to mix things up and follow your passions. I started off as a summer research student in protein engineering labs and then I also did a summer with organometallic chemistry just to make sure what genre of chemistry I wanted to pursue. My advice would be to not stay locked into a particular aspect of chemistry, it is completely okay to jump around to different concepts with a change in desire or interest. I think it is really important to always push yourself to have more experiences.
Where do you see your field going in the future from either your own intuition or current events?
My field is completely driven by genomics right now. When I first started by PhD, we were still in the ‘find and grind era’. We would have to do a multistep purification process and track the enzyme activity of interest, which is rarely done anymore. Nowadays, a genome is sequenced first and then genes of interest are ordered from a company, after which you program a bacterium to make the encoded protein. Genomes are being sequenced daily and uploaded into databases. I spend a lot of my time looking at such data, trying to find interesting genes and imagining what kind of chemistry they might do. So, modern enzymology is like looking at the stars with a telescope, with DNA sequences representing the stars. You surf through information and look for patterns. It is currently a golden age for enzymology because of the facility in generating such genomic data. The challenge now is how to interpret it and find interesting patterns within it. I think being able to predict the function of a protein sequence without having to do an experiment would be the next level in my field. In the future, we can imagine having a computer that would predict a polypeptide sequence that would stabilize a particular transition state and catalyze a desired reaction. This may be used to find an enzyme needed to make a particular drug. At this point, modern enzymology would almost end because then it is basically just a question of modelling transition states accurately. As soon as you can predict how proteins fold with high accuracy and model dynamics during catalysis, we will can focus on figuring out what reaction you want to do and simply synthesize the computed polypeptide sequence. However, protein folding is a really tough problem to solve, especially for larger more complicated proteins. Incorporating the dynamic aspect is also a challenge, they breathe and move during catalysis and don’t exist as rigid structures. However, I think we’ll see it in my lifetime because computational power is increasing, there are even whispers of quantum computing which would unleash huge things!”
Dr. Gregory Jerkiewicz
Dr. Jerkiewicz is a full professor at Queen's University. Dr. Jerkiewicz studies surface materials electrochemistry as well as electrocatalysis at a molecular level. Specifically, his research interests include the hydrogen adsorption/absorption, deposition of thin metallic layers, oxidation and the treatment of metals, as well as electrochemical fuel cells and electrocatalytic hydrogenation at chiral surfaces.
What is your favourite part about teaching?
My favourite part about teaching is being able to interact with the students, and just making sure that they're able to learn and understand everything that I'm trying to teach. I want all of this to be an enjoyable experience.
How did you decide to study chemistry? What/ who were your major influences?
My high school chemistry professor was extremely engaging and passionate about chemistry and that’s how I came to the realization that I also really liked it. His passion spread to me. I also had a very good physics professor, but it was more challenging for me, but chemistry was too easy for me to understand so I found a middle ground : chemical physics. But then I realized that I liked chemistry more than I liked physics, so I ended up with physical chemistry.
Why or how do you think your specific field is of importance to industry?
Electrochemistry is undergoing an incredible expansion right now because it's clean and renewable energy. All the environmental issues going on, these electrochemical applications will be implemented in transport, you name it! So that's why it's important. Also, every portable device we have requires electricity which is delivered by batteries which are electrochemical devices, so without electrochemistry we wouldn’t have batteries. We would have cars that don’t start, we would have cell phones that are beautiful but don’t do anything.
What is the most rewarding aspect of a career in research?
There are many different aspects that are rewarding with a career in research. In research, there are questions that go by that people are unable to answer, so like others you perform these very difficult experiments but sometimes you're the one to figure out what happens and you're finally able to answer questions that have gone unanswered for 20-30 years, that is very rewarding. What is also rewarding is being able to initiate research for undergraduate students and really inspire them, as well as being able to explain to graduate students is very rewarding.
What kind of advice do you have for students who are considering a career in research? Don't hesitate and just do it.
What do you feel is the biggest misconception people have in regards to what you do and why?
A good example of this is in the summer, my neighbour will say "Oh it's summer so you're not teaching and you have the summer off!" what people don't understand is that I supervise a research group and in the summer it is not time for me to sit and garden. It's the time when I write papers and we're still very active. I'm providing supervision to undergraduate and graduate students during this time.
Events
This month, the Chemistry DSC successfully hosted a myriad of fun, educational, and community based events intended to make the month of November both memorable and fun for Queen’s chemistry present (and future) family.
The annual Fall Preview was a weekend event that took place at the Biosciences Complex from Saturday November 2nd to Sunday November 3rd, where prospective students in grade 11 and 12 travelled to Queen’s University to get an idea of what kind of top tier programs we have to offer. Starting at 9am until 2pm, Chemistry DSC members volunteered in shifts (as tour guides or at the informational booth) to give visitors an inside look on the kind of rewarding experiences and benefits to pursuing a chemistry degree at Queen’s.
In addition, from November 5th to November 8th, ticket sales for Gotcha! – a modified game of “tag” and a new addition to exciting list of events the DSC has initiated – began in the Chernoff lobby. The following Monday, all participants picked up their clothespins, each inscribed with an individual’s name. For a mere cost of $3, from 8am-6pm outside of lecture and lab, participants aimed to anonymously “tag” their target with their designated clothespin for 3 seconds. If successful, the “tagger” would grab the “tag-ee’s” clothespin and search for the person whose name was on the new clothespin. Gotcha! has since been taking place and continues to bring out the competitive edge in its participants. The individual with the most clothespins collected will be the decided winner, which will be announced in an upcoming issue.
Furthermore, the long-awaited DSC Clothing Sale took place on Week 11 and Week 12, from 10am to 3pm, Monday to Friday. Purchases could be made in-person in the Chernoff lobby, or online at the ASUS clothing stores. Students had the exciting opportunity to purchase sweaters of either Crewneck or Quarter zip styles, in colours of white, forest green, and grey for the “crews”, and in colours of grey, navy blue, and red for the “zips”. Customers also had the choice to further customize their apparel with finely stitched embroideries up to 14 characters long. In addition, either one of two logos were offered: one of the original Chemistry department logo, and one that was beautifully designed with the text “I’D RATHER BE IN CHERNOFF”. Overall, November was truly a successful month for Queen’s chemistry DSC! Thank you to everyone for their hard work, enthusiasm and perseverance!
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