• Professor & Chair, Chemistry

Joseph Ackerman

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• Ph.D. in Physical chemistry at Colorado State University
• S.B. in Chemistry at Boston University

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Hot heads Current technology for brain cooling unlikely to help trauma patients Aug. 3, 2006 -- Constant blood flow shields the brain from cold, limiting the effects of any attempt to cool the brain. Download Attempts to cool the brain to reduce injury from stroke and other head trauma may face a significant obstacle: current cooling devices can't penetrate very deeply into the brain. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown that blood flow in the brain creates a "cold shielding" effect and have developed a method for calculating brain temperature that may be used to improve brain cooling techniques.

Small world, big advance Shell cross-linking technique key to making nanoparticles May 4, 2004 -- Wooley Download Using a technique pioneered by Washington University in St. Louis chemist Karen Wooley, Ph.D., scientists have developed a novel way to make discrete carbon nanoparticles for electrical components used in industry and research.

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Current research emphasis in Joseph Ackerman group can be divided conceptually between the development of new technical and instrumental strategies and applications to problems of both a basic and clinical nature. The former include: fast-field-switched electron spin resonance at ultra low field; intracellular and extracellular compartment specific magnetic resonance active probes; magnetic field gradient and radiofrequency coil structures; 1H and 2H NMR blood flow and perfusion/diffusion imaging (emphasis on brain); and Bayesian probability analysis of time domain NMR signals as an alternative to Fourier transform-based methods. The latter encompass a range of physiologic studies, for example; determination of the biophysical basis for the marked development of diffusion weighted image contrast immediately following brain injury; elucidation of the primary etiology of septic shock; and disruption of tumor biology by hyperthermia in the face of induced pH decrease and energy deficit.

The Ackerman group research and training philosophy stresses hands-on full participation in all aspects of a project by students and fellows. Close collaboration with colleagues on both campuses provides the wide range of expertise required to work at the interface of the physical and medical sciences.