Overview

The Haynes group focuses on applications of analytical chemistry in the fields of immunology and toxicology, with much expertise in the area of single cell analysis. One major area of interest is nanotoxicology - an emerging field investigating the biological and ecological impacts of engineered nanomaterials. Another major focus in the group is on studying fundamental properties of cells involved in inflammation. In fact, the Haynes group has performed the first ever real-time single blood platelet measurements, examining the chemical messenger molecules that platelets secrete upon stimulation. While most of the Haynes lab research employs electrochemical and spectroscopic techniques, the group is always exploring new and exciting technologies to answer pressing bioanalytical questions.

News

05.09.2012
Both Ben and Audrey are awarded 2012-2013 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships!
05.09.2012
Heidi Nelson defends her undergraduate thesis to earn summa cum laude Latin honors.
05.02.2012
The Haynes Lab is now tweeting (thanks to Audrey) - Follow us: @HaynesChemLab.
05.01.2012
Both Alec and cole are awarded UROP funding for Fall 2012.
04.26.2012
Tony passes his candidacy exam.
04.21.2012
Alec is recognized as the "Best in Session" for his oral presentation at the Winchell Undergraduate Symposium.
04.19.2012
Alec is awarded one of the Department of Chemistry's "Junior Awards" - the Robert C. Brasted Memorial Fellowship - based his academic and research performance.
04.16.2012
Katie is awarded an all-expense paid trip to the 4th EuCheMS Chemistry Congress in Prague, Czech Republic by the ACS.
04.12.2012
Yu-Shen Lin successfully defends his Ph.D thesis - congratulations, Dr. Lin!.
04.03.2012
Solaire is awarded "honorable mention" in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship competition.
03.29.2012
John Thompson defends his undergraduate honors thesis. He has chosen the CalTech/UCLA MD/PhD program as the next step in his career.
03.25.-03.29.2012
Melissa and Katie present work at the Spring 2012 National ACS meeting in San Diego, CA.
03.21.2012
Undergraduate Yiwen Wang joins the Haynes group to perform HPLC analysis of cell-secreted species.
03.11.-03.14.2012
Secil, Solaire, Sarah Gruba, and Christy present work at Pittcon 2012 in Orlando, FL. Christy is featured in "Pittcon Today" magazine.
03.05.2012
Katie Hurley passes her oral exam.
02.17.2012
Solaire Finkenstaedt-Quinn passes her oral exam.
01.25.2012
Sara and John's collaborative work designing a blood-based screen for nanotoxicity is accepted for publication in Nanomedicine.
01.10.2012
Kyle and Heidi's collaborative work exploring SAM ordering on SERS substrates is accepted for publication in the The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
01.04.2012
Collaborative work between the Haynes and Gupta groups, performed by Ben, is accepted for publication in ACS Chemical Biology. The CBITG-supported paper explores the role of mast cells in sickle cell disease.
11.30.2011
Alec Nicol is awarded a UROP grant to continue his work with mentor Katie Hurley on mesoporous silica nanoparticles.
11.23.2011
Ian Gunsolus and Xiaojie Wu join the Haynes group as first year graduate students.
11.18.2011
Yu-Shen and Katie's perspective article about mesoporous silica nanoparticle therapeutics is accepted for publication in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
11.14.2011
Audrey wins the "Best Student Poster" prize for FACSS 2011.
11.04.2011
Kyle Bantz successfully defends her doctoral thesis, entitled "Development of a Surface-Enhanced Raman Sensor for Detection in Complex Matrices". Congratulations Dr. Bantz!
11.03.2011
Yu-Shen, Nardine, and Katie's paper about co-modified mesoporous silica nanoparticles is accepted for publication in JACS.
11.01.2011
Sara Love successfully defends her doctoral thesis, entitled "Assessing Toxicity by Examining Cellular Functions: Studies with Carbon Fiber Microelectrode Amperometry and Noble Metal Nanoparticles". Congratulations Dr. Love!
10.20.2011
Donghyuk and Yu-Shen's paper about microfluidic evaluation of mesoporous silica cytotoxicity is accepted for publication in Analytical Chemistry.
10.03.2011
Shencheng's last paper (with Emily Woo as co-author), about quantal regulation in platelets, is accepted for publication in Biophysical Journal.
09.27.2011
Christy presents a talk titled "Discrepancies in In Vivo and In Vitro Nanotoxicology Studies" at a conference focusing on research ethics and oversight related to nanotherapeutics.
09.01.2011
Shencheng's paper about pharmacological manipulation of the platelet cytoskeleton is accepted for publication in Platelets.
08.27-08.31.2011
Christy presents two talks at the national ACS meeting in Denver.
08.26.2011
Tony Campos joins the group as a new graduate student to work on SERS and MS sensing.
07.21.2011
The Haynes group, joined by friends in the Massari group, did their 6th annual "Chemistry Day" at W. 7th Community Center in St. Paul (photos in the gallery).
07.08.2011
Christy is selected to receive the 2012 Pittsburgh Conference Achievement Award from the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh. Christy was chosen based on "the number and depth of contributions in the fields of bioanalytical chemistry and nanoparticle chemistry." The award will be officially given during a special symposium at PittCon 2012.
06.08.2011
Our first collaborative paper with the Macosko group is accepted for publication in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. This exciting paper explores the cellular toxicity of nanoscale graphene.
05.25.2011
Christy's outreach work with the "Energy and U" show, with colleagues David Blank, Frank Bates, and Marc Hillmyer, is featured in the Minnesota Daily.
05.19.2011
Christy is named the 2011 Joseph Black Award recipient by the Royal Society of Chemistry. This award recognizes a "young scientist in any field covering the practice and teaching of analytical science. The award citation can be found here.
05.18.2011
Both Yu-Shen and Melissa are named as recipients of the University of Minnesota's Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. These are very competitive, with only 106 awards across the entire University; the funds will support Yu-Shen and Melissa's final year of doctoral work.
05.17.2011
Donghyuk, Ben, and Audrey present their work beautifully at the Chemistry Department's "3rd Year Symposium".
05.16.2011
Anushua, the high school student working in the Haynes lab, received the third place grand award in the category of Medicine and Health at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in LA.
05.05.2011
Another collaborative paper with the Labuza group, on the topic of ricin detection, is accepted for publication in Chemical Sciences.
05.04.2011
All of the group undergraduates present their research in the Haynes Group Undergraduate Research Symposium, including Marsha, Heidi, John, Joe, Nardine, and Greg. Emily and Tiya do presentations of their honors theses in front of their committee members.
05.04.2011
The Haynes Group holds the 2nd Annual Pie Bake-Off. Audrey won with a coconut cream pie based on scoring by our "celebrity" judges: Profs. Connie Lu, Mark DiStefano, and Dave Blank as well as former post-doc Nate Wittenberg (photos in the gallery).
04.27.2011
Heidi wins a UROP award to fund her research in the Haynes group.
04.26.2011
Shencheng Ge successfully defends his thesis, entitled "Electrochemical Studies of Platelet Exocytosis." Shortly, Shencheng will start postdoctoral research with Prof. Rustem Ismagliov at University of Chicago/Cal Tech. Congratulations Dr. Ge!
04.25.2011
Nancy is a recipient of the 2011 David A and Merece H. Johnson scholarship - an award given to a rising senior undergraduate having demonstrated both scholastic and research excellence.
04.21.2011
Nardine wins the best poster award at the Winchell Symposium and the University of Minnesota's Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry.
04.09 - 04.11.2011
Christy attends and presents at the 2011 German-American Kavli Fronteirs of Science Symposium in Irvine, CA.
04.08.2011
Secil and Sara's paper on how cholesterol levels influence chromaffin cell exocytosis is accepted for publication in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.
04.05.2011
Katherine Stevens is named a 2011 NSF Graduate Research Fellow! Nardine Abadeer receives an honorable mention for her NSF application! Great work ladies!
04.01.2011
Heidi Nelson is awarded a Heisig/Gleysteen fellowship to continue her research in the Haynes lab during summer 2011.
03.27 - 03.30.2011
Kyle, Ben, and Christy attend and present their work at the Spring 2011 ACS Meeting in Anaheim, CA.
03.17.2011
Melissa is awarded an ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry summer graduate fellowship - great work!
03.13 - 03.17.2011
Melissa, Audrey, Nardine, and John present their work at PittCon 2011 in Atlanta, GA.
03.05 - 03.09.2011
Sara and Secil present their work at the Biophysical Society Meeting in Baltimore, MD.
03.07.2011
Kyle wins an MN ACS travel grant to attend Spring ACS in Anaheim.
03.03.2011
Christy gives an invited seminar at Notre Dame.
02.25.2011
Sara's collaborative work with the Canavan group at the University of New Mexico on the toxicity of pNIPAM coatings is accepted for publication in Langmuir.
02.21.2011
Christy gives an invited seminar at Northwestern University, her alma mater.
02.14.2011
Shencheng and Emily's ensemble platelet work is accepted for publication in Analytical Chemistry.
02.11.2011
Christy is honored as University of Cincinnati Chemistry Department's "Speaker of the Year". Her visit to the department includes two seminars and lots of time with the U. Cincinnati graduate students.
02.08.2011
A perspective co-authored by the Haynes and Oh groups is accepted for publication in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP).
02.02.2011
Another collaborative paper with the Labuza lab (in Food Science) is accepted for publication as a letter in Analytical Chemistry.
01.25.2011
Melissa Maurer-Jones is selected as a recipient of a SEAC travel grant to present her work at Pittcon 2011 in Atlanta.
01.24.2011
Heidi Nelson, a junior chemistry major, joins the group to perform LSPR sensor experiments with mentor Kyle Bantz.

01.16.2011
The nanotox oversight thought experiment imagined by Bryce, Melissa, Ozlem, Yu-Shen, and Christy is accepted for publication in Journal of Nanoparticle Research.

01.14.2011
Christy gives an invited talk on the topic of nanotoxicology at the monthly MN ACS meeting.

12.06.2010
Christy gives an invited talk on the topic of nanotoxicology at Ecolab.

12.04.2010
The Haynes Group holiday party includes food, a gift exchange, and games (photos in the gallery).

12.04.2010
A collaborative paper with the LaBuza group is accepted for publication in Journal of Raman Spectroscopy .

11.20.2010
Bryce, Nancy, and Kathy's paper on how zeta-potential influences nanotox is accepted for publication in the The Analyst (see the publications page for this link) - great work guys!

11.16.2010
Christy gives an invited seminar at NIST to the "nanotox" team (and gets to visit with Bryce in his new home).

11.15.2010
Solaire Finkenstaedt-Quinn and Katherine Stevens join the Haynes group to perform their doctoral work. Welcome!

11.06.2010
Kyle, Melissa, Audrey, and Christy travel to Las Vegas to compete in the Great Urban Race.

10.17 - 10.21.2010
Christy, Kyle, and Audrey attend and present at FACSS in Raleigh, NC where Christy receives the ACS Findeis Award for achievements by a young analytical scientist.

10.14.2010
Christy give an invited talk in University of Minnesota Pharmaceutics about Yu-Shen, Melissa, and Nardine's work on silica drug delivery nanoparticles.

10.08.2010
Yu-Shen and Nardine's work on assessing and improving the stability of mesoporous silica is accepted for publication in Chemical Communications (see the publications page for this link).

10.07.2010
Melissa presents a talk titled "Fundamental Assessment of TiO2 Nanoparticle Toxicity Using Carbon-Fiber Microelectrode Amperometry" at the Northland Chapter Society of Toxicology Meeting.

09.30.2010
Christy presents Shencheng's platelet work at the NIH Pioneer Symposium in Bethesda, MD.

09.28.2010
Bryce's paper describing the application of carbon-fiber microelectrochemistry to study the cellular effects of immunotoxicants is accepted for publication in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. Just one more paper until Bryce's entire thesis is published!

09.23.2010
A special issue of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry focused on nanotoxicology, guest edited by Christy, is published. This issue includes a guest editorial and a cover/paper based on Sara's work (see the publications page for these links).

09.09 - 09.13.2010
Shencheng gives an invited lecture at the Potter's Lodge Meeting in upstate New York.

09.09.2010
Gregory Gibson, a sophomore chemical engineering major, joins the group to work with mentor Melissa Maurer-Jones.

09.08.2010
Christy gives an invited lecture at Shanghai Normal University.

09.07.2010
Christy gives an invited lecture at Fudan University.

09.07.2010
Christy gives an invited lecture at Tongji University.

09.01.2010
The Haynes group makes their annual trip to the MN State Fair.

08.26.2010
The Fall group meeting schedule is available. Interested first year graduate students are invited to attend.

08.08. - 08.13.2010
Kyle presents her work at the XXII International Conference on Raman Spectroscopy in Boston.
08.06.2010
Bryce Marquis defends his thesis to become the first Haynes lab Ph.D. He and his family will depart shortly for his National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship at NIST. Congratulations Dr. Marquis!
08.06.2010
The Haynes group has their first annual pie bake-off. Judges were Wayland Nolan, Connie Lu, Nancy Thao, and Nate Wittenberg, and Melissa won with her peach pie. Photos are posted in our gallery.
08.06.2010
Most of the non-graduate student Haynes group researchers: Nancy, Emily, Anushua, John, Nardine, Ben C., Marsha, Yingxia, Ozge, and Solaire gave end-of-summer talks at our undergraduate symposium.
07.29.2010
Christy gives an invited seminar at Clemson University.
07.26.2010
The Haynes group (and friends) put on their 5th annual "Chemistry Day" at W. 7th Community Center. New photos are in the gallery.
Go to News Archive