A Florida State University chemist specializing in the study of chemical reactions between materials has received a national honor for his work from the American Chemical Society, or ACS.

Hedi Mattoussi, a Distinguished Research Professor with the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been selected to receive the 2024 ACS Award in Surface Chemistry in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of surface chemistry — a branch of the field concerned with processes occurring at interfaces between phases, especially between liquid and gas forms.

“To receive this award is proof that the work you’ve been doing for years is appreciated and impactful,” Mattoussi said. “It’s satisfying in a sense. But most of all, it’s nice to feel the appreciative interactions that I’ve had in the past few years and even the numerous messages I’ve received from friends here and outside the U.S. That’s a wonderful feeling.”

The ACS Award in Surface Chemistry was established in 1991 as the Arthur W. Adamson Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Surface Chemistry, and was sponsored by Occidental Petroleum Corporation. The award was sponsored by the ACS and its various divisions from 2008-2017 and has been sponsored by Procter & Gamble since 2018. A single recipient is selected for the award annually.

Mattoussi’s research at FSU focuses on understanding and tailoring the surface properties of colloidal inorganic nanocrystals — tiny, artificially-grown inorganic particles that are stabilized by a layer of surfactants attached to their surface — and determining how they can be used in various applications, including in biological imaging and sensing.

Earlier this year, Mattoussi co-authored a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society detailing development of a new test to detect biological markers related to several types of cancer.

“We work with various nanostructured materials, particularly with what people define as colloidal nanocrystals. These are made of inorganic cores, the hard part of the system. And they are colloidal because they have a ligand on their surfaces that allows them to float in a solution environment. In other words, if you remove that ligand, they will just aggregate and clump at the bottom of the sample,” Mattoussi said.

Mattoussi’s lab works to identify ways to control and optimize several key aspects of nanoparticle growth, structural and optical characterization, ligand design and surface coordination. Researchers use techniques such as photochemistry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to characterize the surface properties of these nanomaterials and develop approaches to control their interactions with their surrounding environment as a means for energy harvesting and sensor design.

Since joining the Florida State faculty in 2009, Mattoussi has been named a fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is the first member of the department to receive the ACS Award in Surface Chemistry.

“It is a well-deserved award that recognizes the exceptional contributions that Professor Mattoussi has made to the general area of surface chemistry, particularly through his creative endeavor on designing and synthesizing novel nanocrystals and creating multifunctional ligands on their surfaces,” said Department of Chemistry Chair Wei Yang. “This award once again displays the excellence of faculty scholarship and the competitiveness of research programs in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.”

The ACS award is the latest honor for Mattoussi, whose research portfolio includes approximately 240 publications and 17 U.S.-issued patents.

“It is my pleasure to again recognize a chemistry and biochemistry faculty member by congratulating Hedi as our first winner of the ACS Surface Chemistry award,” said Sam Huckaba, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “He is most deserving and we are proud of his accomplishments.”

Mattoussi is set to accept the award at the ACS Spring 2024 Meeting and Expo, scheduled for March 17-21 in New Orleans.

To learn more about the 2024 ACS National Awards, visit acs.org/funding. To learn more about Mattoussi’s work and chemistry at FSU, visit chem.fsu.edu.

The post FSU chemist to receive American Chemical Society Award in Surface Chemistry appeared first on Florida State University News.

When doctors are examining suspected cancer cases, they turn to biomarker tests to help make a diagnosis.

With a testing system and patient samples, physicians can investigate potential leads, narrowing down their list of culprits to provide precise, effective treatment for patients.

A team led by Florida State University chemists has developed a new test for detecting biological markers related to several types of cancer. Their research was recently published in Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“Better tools for detecting cancer mean more effective treatment for patients,” said study co-author Hedi Mattoussi, a professor in the FSU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “Our goal in this research was to build a biosensor that would light up in the presence of cancer markers, offering another tool for the ongoing problem of detecting this disease.”

The sensing platform is made of a gold nanoparticle and molecules called peptides that are labeled with a dye. The components are connected by chemical bonds, and the gold nanoparticle keeps the dye from glowing in the presence of UV light. When a patient sample containing the enzyme MMP-14 — a biomarker for various types of cancers, but most commonly for breast cancer — is added, it breaks bonds in the peptides, separating a fragment with the dye from the gold. Without the gold to absorb the energy from the dye, the sample begins to glow.

“You start with a system that is dark, which we can think of as ‘off,’ like we would with a light switch,” Mattoussi said. “When you bring in the enzyme, the system turns ‘on’ and emits light. It is like a beacon.”

The light glowing from the sample depends on the concentration of the enzyme and interaction time. By measuring that light, researchers can generate data that inform them if a cancer marker is present in a sample and in what levels.

Various tests already exist for examining whether a patient has cancer. This research is a first step toward developing a method that can test for a wider variety of cancers.

Mattoussi and his team tested their system with the MMP-14 enzyme but they plan to expand this research with work that matches more peptide chains with other enzyme cancer markers. With further development, it could allow scientists to use a single assessment to test for a variety of cancers at once.

“The platform we have designed is applicable to any enzyme,” he said. “All that you need to do is vary the nature of the peptide that is attached to the nanoparticle. You change the peptide, you change the enzyme, and it works the same way.

Along with its applications for detecting disease, the research also sheds more light on how enzymes interact with peptides that are attached to nanoparticles and how the addition of enzymes affects the testing system.

“One aspect of our research was the application aspect,” Mattoussi said. “Cancer diagnosis is still a huge problem. Early detection has been a limiting factor. But the other aspect of this work was the ability to develop a platform that starts with a nanoparticle attached to a peptide labeled with a dye and understand the way they interact. How efficient are those interactions? What happens when you vary the size of nanoparticles or the number of peptides? So, there is a practical aspect and a fundamental aspect to this research.”

Co-authors on this paper were Zhicheng Jin, a former FSU doctoral student who is now a postdoctoral associate at Harvard University, Narjes Dridi, Goutam Palui, who is now a researcher at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Professor Qing-Xiang “Amy” Sang, all from FSU; Valle Palomo and Philip E. Dawson, of The Scripps Research Institute; and Jesse V. Jokerst of University of California San Diego.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Kasei-Asahi Corporation.

The post FSU researchers develop new test for detecting cancer biomarkers appeared first on Florida State University News.