Wooley Group
Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D.
Projects: 1, 2, 3, and 4
Nanomaterials Production and Skills Development Cores
W.T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
P.O. Box 30012
College Station, TX 77842-3012
phone: +1 979 845-4077
fax: +1 979 845-4719
Goals for the Current PEN Contract
Karen L. Wooley is the project leader for Project 1, and is also involved in Projects 2, 3, 4, the Nanomaterials Production Core, and the Skills Development Core.
Facilities
Wooley’s research group occupies a newly renovated laboratory that consists of 4440 ft2 synthetic space, 200 ft2 tissue culture room, 65 ft2 cold room, and five instrument rooms (510, 400, 300, 160 and 70 ft2). The synthetic space contains thirty-five hoods (five 8-ft hoods, twenty-four 6-ft hoods and six 6-ft walk-in hoods), each equipped with the necessary equipment to perform polymer synthesis and characterization. Specific equipment includes: double manifold vacuum lines and pumps, a SciMatCo 5-solvent purification system (THF, dioxane, dichloromethane, toluene, DMF), balances, refrigerators, freezers, 5 Buchi rotary evaporators, 2 lyophilizers (Labconco freeze dry system Freezone 4.5 and Millrock Technology MD53 lyophilizer), a Barnstead NANOpure water system, a Fusion UV Systems, Inc. photocuring system, an Attension (KSV Instruments) T200-Auto 2 Automated Theta Optical Tensiometer contact angle meter, a KSV 2000 Langmuir-Blodgett trough system, a Spin 150 10000 rpm spin coater, a 5000 rpm centrifuge, a 5000 rpm centrifuge with temperature control, and other small equipment. The instrument rooms house all of the liquid chromatographic instrumentation, an ellipsometer (Gaertner Scientific Corporation, Variable Angle Stokes Ellipsometer, Model L116S), a differential scanning calorimeter and thermogravimetric analyzer, and other major and small equipment (see Major Equipment below). One of the instrument laboratories is designed specifically for the dynamic light scattering instrumentation, another has no windows to contain a fluorescence microscope (Olympus IX70 w/ Olympus CAMEDIA C-5060 camera), and the other has low vibrational noise to hold the atomic force microscopy instruments (see Major Equipment below). The tissue culture laboratory houses two incubators, a laminar flow hood, an analytical ultracentrifuge, freezers, a microscope, centrifuges, gel electrophoresis apparatus, and other small equipment. A special vented room is designed for chemical storage, with a chemical inventory system utilized (CISPro). All laboratories are well equipped with safety showers and eye wash stations.
Within Wooley’s Laboratories: Five gel permeation chromatography systems are based upon: (1) a Waters 1515 isocratic HPLC pump, Waters 2414 refractive index detector and Precision Detectors PD2020 and PD2000DLSplus dynamic light scattering detector system, operating with tetrahydrofuran as the eluent; (2) a Waters 1515 isocratic HPLC pump and Waters 2414 refractive index detector, operating with tetrahydrofuran as the eluent; (3) a Waters 1515 isocratic HPLC pump, Waters 2414 refractive index detector and Waters 2998 photodiode array detector, operating with N,N-dimethylformamide as the eluent; (4) a Waters 1525 binary HPLC pump, Waters 2414 refractive index detector, and Waters fraction collector III, operating as a preparative GPC system, and (5) a Tosoh EcoSEC HLC-8320GPC, operating with chloroform as the eluent. Standard HPLC equipment includes a Shimadzu Prominence HPLC comprised of a LC-20AD liquid chromatograph, DGU-20A3 degasser, CBM-20A communications bus module, SPD-20AV UV-vis detector, and a RID-10A refractive index detector. Spectrophotometers include: a Shimadzu UV-2550 UV-vis spectrophotometer; a Shimadzu RF-5301PC spectrofluorophotometer; a Shimadzu IR spectrophotometer equipped with an AIM-8800 automatic IR microscope. Two dynamic light scattering instrumentation set-ups include: a Brookhaven Instruments Corporation Model BI-200SM goniometer, a model EMI-9865 photomultiplier, a model BI-9000AT digital correlator, and a Coherent Inova 300 ion laser; and a Beckman Coulter Delsa NanoC equipped with a Delsa NanoAT auto titrator. A Beckman Coulter Optima XL-I Analytical Ultracentrifuge is located in the biological instrument room. Thermal analysis equipment includes a Mettler-Toledo DSC822e and TGA/SDTA851e. Three atomic force microscopes are available: an Asylum Research MFP-3D stand alone AFM equipped with a PolyHeater; a Veeco NanoScope V MultiMode AFM with a diTAC thermal applications controller; and a Digital Instruments NanoScope IIIa Dimension AFM. A Q-Sense E4 QCM-D quartz crystal microbalance, an Attension (KSV Instruments) T200-Auto 2 Automated Theta Optical Tensiometer contact angle meter, and a KSV 2000 Langmuir-Blodgett trough system are available for surface chemistry studies and analyses.
Available at TAMU: Solution-state NMR spectrometers (Varian, 7 total, 3 x 500 MHz (NMRS 500, and 2 Inova 500’s), 2 x 400 MHz (Avance 400 and Inova 400), 2 x 300 MHz (Inova 300 and Mercury 300) and solid-state NMR spectromers (Varian, 2 total, NMRS 500 and NMRS 300) are available in a departmental facility. Flow cytometry, and fluorescence confocal microscope facilities are available in facilities on campus (the Molecular Characterization Facility, in the Department of Chemical Engineering). The TEM facilities at Texas A&M University are located in the Microscopy and Imaging Center, which include the following instruments: FEI Tecnai G2 F20 FE-TEM; JEOL 1200 EX TEM; JEOL JEM-2010. Detailed information of the above instruments can be found by the following link:
http://microscopy.tamu.edu/instruments/transmission-electron-microscopy.
People
Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D.
NHLBI-PEN Principal Investigator and Group Coordinator
W.T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 845-4077
fax: +1 979 845-4719
wooley@mail.chem.tamu.edu
Judy Taylor
Office Associate
Department of Chemistry
phone: +1 979 862-3059
fax: +1 979 862-1137
judy.taylor@mail.chem.tamu.edu
Gyu Seong Heo
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3083
fax: +1 979 845-4719
gyuseong.heo@chem.tamu.edu
Nam Lee
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3054
fax: +1 979 845-4719
nam.lee@chem.tamu.edu
Ang Li
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3083
fax: +1 979 845-4719
ang.li@chem.tamu.edu
Danielle Policarpio
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3083
fax: +1 979 845-4719
danielle.policarpio@chem.tamu.edu
Ritu Shrestha
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3056
fax: +1 979 845-4719
ritu.shrestha@chem.tamu.edu
(Lily) Yun Lin
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3054
fax: +1 979 845-4719
yun.lin@chem.tamu.edu
Shiyi Zhang
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3083
fax: +1 979 845-4719
shiyi.zhang@chem.tamu.edu