Outreach

Dr. Chundawat has collaborated with former Rutgers University undergraduate researcher Khovesh Ramdin and his PhD student Markus Hackl, PhD to develop a multidimensional simulation package to model and visualize tethered particle motion. This work was published as an open-access article in a Biophysical Society journal called ‘The Biophysicist’ and is available via the link. Briefly, analysis of tethered particles bound can facilitate understanding of various biophysical phenomena such DNA–protein, protein–carbohydrate or any protein-ligand binding interactions, as well as biopolymer extensibility. We have developed an open access computational toolkit for the community that can model any given tether–particle system and allows the user to generate a parameter space with static and dynamic model components. We show how our simulator results can be used in biophysical research using single-molecule force spectroscopy. For example, we used the simulator to successfully recreate experimental trends observed by using acoustic force spectroscopy (AFS). Overall, our simulator and graphical user interface can be used for demonstrating behaviors characteristic to tethered particle motion in an educational context as well as researchers working on single-molecule force spectroscopy and single-particle tracking.

Dr. Chundawat, in collaboration with other CBE faculty, has developed audio-visual presentation and hands-on demo activity to help students learn about chemical engineering as a profession, opportunities at Rutgers CBE, and highlight research activities specifically in the area of bio/pharmaceutical engineering in general. This material is available on the Rutgers CBE Website (see attached pdf as example). As part of the hands-on demonstration, Dr. Chundawat worked with CBE Undergrad Vinny Gambino and collaborated with Dr. Troy Shinbrot to demonstrate how granular solid particles can be fluidized and its relevance pharmaceutical tablet drug manufacturing.

Dr. Chundawat, in collaboration with other CBE faculty, has developed audio-visual presentations to help students and visitors learn about chemical engineering as a profession, opportunities at Rutgers CBE, and highlight research activities specifically in the area of carbohydrate-active enzymes, biofuels, & healthcare in general. This material is available on the Rutgers CBE Website (see attached pdf as example). Dr. Chundawat also directed two engineering outreach programs at Rutgers, from July-Aug 2016, supporting over 70 high-school students and their parents providing an overview of opportunities and challenges in the field of chemical engineering by engaging visitors with hands-on experimental activities (e.g., Designing Rutgers CBE Rocket-Car). See pics from these event on Twitter here and here! Finally, Chundawat and student teams have engaged with families at annual Rutgers Day events to demonstrate the impact of chemical engineering on industrialized societies and conduct live chemistry-focused demos to engage students/visitors. Dr. Chundawat also participates in K-12 outreach activities with local New Jersey school students as STEM ambassador as part of the Rutgers NJAES annual summer STEM program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations to Srividya Vyjayanthi T, Sophia Fernandez, and Arushi Biswas, on successfully planning and launching Chundawat Lab’s first hands-on demo activity on enzymes relevant to gut health! The activity was titled ‘Unlocking the Energy Code: All about Carbohydrates & Enzymes’. I also enjoyed participating in this event today afternoon and engaging with the students. Check out photos from the event below.

This outreach event was developed by Sri Vidya and her team of SUPER Rutgers School of Engineering undergraduates this summer at Rutgers. The team successfully developed a simple enzyme assay to detect lactose in various infant and adult food/beverage products (including infant feed formula) using simple over-the-counter reagents. I was very curious about the levels of lactose and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) in some of the infant formulas since HMOs are more than simple food for bugs. It was interesting to note that one of beverage products was not lactose-free so my students will double check the results and potentially report this unexpected finding to the FDA consumer reports. Don’t always believe what’s on a product label sometimes!

Excellent work by the team led by Sri Vidya explaining relevance of carbohydrates to gut health and role of carbohydrate-active enzymes for complex carbohydrates degradation. We hope to further develop this outreach activity and make it available as a K-12 educational activity in the coming year!

Thanks for funding/support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Rutgers School of Engineering, The Academy at Rutgers for Girls in Engineering & Technology (TARGET), and Rutgers University Project SUPER Undergraduate Summer Research Experience Program. In particular, support from NSF was geared towards engineering enzymes for complex HMOs biosynthesis, as well as support of this outreach activity to introduce students to the exciting field of glycosciences and glycoengineering. And finally, thanks to all the rising 9th grade students and budding scientists/engineers that took part in our event today, along with support from the TARGET program today! Special thanks to Aísha Ciafullo, Ed.M and her team of TARGET program student volunteers for their help at today’s event as well.

Our group has also developed K-16 curriculum for educators to incorporate bioenergy related concepts into their classrooms and has also developed several hands-on STEM focused outreach activities at Rutgers. In particular, our group has developed a cellulosic biofuels and cellulolytic enzymes specific hands-on outreach activity (called ‘Grass-to-Gas’). The original day-long outreach activity was first introduced to a diverse cohort of high school students in the summer of 2016, and also repeated in 2017 (with Rutgers CBE 2018 Senior Benjamin Esposito), as part of the pre-engineering summer academy sponsored by Rutgers University (Division of Continuing Studies). See the pictures from this event on Twitter here! Educational materials prepared for this hands-on activity and survey questions are available for use by the teaching community in general. Detailed bioenergy-specific outreach protocols are accessible to educators and is published online. Further, in collaboration with CBE process engineering laboratory instructor Dr. Alex Bertuccio, we have now successfully introduced a ‘Grass-to-Gas’ inspired lab experiment to engage CBE undergraduate students on cutting-edge bioenergy concepts relevant to biochemical engineering. This new lab was first offered in Spring 2020 (155:416) and will continue to be offered in future UG process lab courses. Finally, Dr. Chundawat served as a research mentor for Mr. Marin Dobson, a biology and biotechnology teacher at Fort Atkinson high school (Wisconsin), as part of the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program sponsored by the Department of Energy’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE-GLBRC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the summer of 2013. All relevant educational material on biomass deconstruction developed in this RET program is made available via the GLBRC Outreach Website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Chundawat lab has developed a novel concentrated ammonia-salt based pretreatment process for enabling biomass conversion to fermentable sugars. This work received media attention and Dr. Chundawat was interviewed on WMBCTV in Jan 2020 to provide details on the ammonia-salt pretreatment and biomass conversion to sugars using engineered enzymes (YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEoHDRPx8-I). Our group has also received media attention for a novel strategy of negatively supercharging cellulases to reduce enzyme costs for biofuel production. We have also designed various cellulolytic enzymes, both cellulosomal and non-cellulosomal, to reduce enzyme usage for biomass deconstruction into fermentable sugars. See representative images from such press release events.​

 

 

 

 

 

The Chundawat lab has developed a novel process analytical toolkit (called N-GLYcanyzer) for enabling continuous monitoring of protein therapeutics drug quality during biomanufacturing. Dr. Chundawat and PhD student Aron Gyorgypal have been interviewed by Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News and various other media outlets on this research. This work was also highlighted as a journal cover article in ACS Analytical Chemistry. See representative images from this work below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Chundawat group likes to also party and socialize outside the lab. See photos from some of these events below. Follow us on Twitter to see what the group’s up to now!