Paul Kline

pkline@mtsu.edu

Dr. Earl Pearson

Chemistry

Discipline specific equipment

Davis Science Building 208

New Technology

N/A

The American Chemical Society (ACS) has identified biochemistry as an area of chemistry undergoing significant growth. While most companies have no plans to hire additional personnel near term, an exception is biotechnology firms. Further, the single biggest employer of new chemistry graduates is the pharmaceutical industry. In addition as boundaries break down, employers are looking for scientists trained in interdisciplinary areas such as biochemisty. Finally, the School of Pharmacy at UT plans to require biochemistry with a laboratory for admission. Therefore, the Chemistry Department is upgrading and expanding its courses in biochemistry. The department recently applied to the ACS to add a biochemistry certification to its professional ACS major. A new Biochemical Techniques course was approved and the department is upgrading the laboratory in Biochemisty (CHEM 3530). The equipment requested in this proposal will be used by students enrolled in biochemistry and those conducting biochemical research (120/year). In addition much of the equipment will be used in other courses. For example the spectrophotometers will be used in Introductory General Chemistry (380/year) and the diode array spectrophotometers will be used in course such as Detection of Chemicl Pollutants and Instrumental Analysis, among others (30/year).