Dr. Yuemin Li

Lecture 1

phone: 936-261-3123
email: yeliu@pvamu.edu
Office: 210 Elmer E. O’Banion Science Building, Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View TX 77446 USA

Education

PhD in Computational Chemistry, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
M.S. in Radiochemistry, University of China Institute of Atomic Energy/Peking University
B.S. in Analytical Chemistry, Shanxi University

Biography

Dr. Yuemin Liu is a Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry at the Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU). Prior to this appointment, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Rice University. He was also an instructor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette from 2009 till 2016. Dr. Liu received B.S. in Analytical Chemistry from the Shanxi University, and he also obtained M.S. in Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry in China Institute of Atomic Energy and Peking University. Dr. Liu earned his Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry from the University of Toledo. He also got his post-doctoral training at University of Nevada, Reno, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Loyola University Chicago.

Social media: Google scholar, Research gate, Linkedin, facebook

www.youtube.com/@raymondliu4406

Work History

Lecturer I, Department of Chemistry, Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas, 2019-Present

Visiting Scholar, Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, Texas, 2017-Present

Instructor, Department of Chemistry, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, Louisiana, 2008-2017

Research Associate, Department of Chemistry, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 2007-2008

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, 2006-2007

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Chemistry, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, 2005-2006

Associate Researcher, Department of Isotope Research, China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, China, 1991-2000

Instructor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Shanxi Institute of Metallurgy of, Taiyuan, China, 1985-1988

Awards and Honors

Faculty RISE Award R-040437 ($5,000) for the academic year 2021/2022 Fall and Spring semesters on 09/30/2021.

Faculty Enhancement Program (FEP) Award ($916) 552508-00000 on 11/19/2022.

Grant $750,000 of DOE-FOA-0002931 “Solution-based Synthesis of Structurally Well-defined Carbon Nanobuds and Their Energy Applications” as a Co-Principal Investigator on 07/06/2023.

MEMBERSHIP

ACS member

Teaching Interests
Courses Taught

Chem1106 General Chemistry Laboratory, 2019 – 2024

Chem1112 General Chemistry Laboratory II, 2019 – 2024

Chem1203, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory I, 2019 – 2024

Chem1204, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory II, 2019 – 2024

Chem1311, General Chemistry, 2019 – 2024

Chem1303, General Chemistry I, 2019 – 2024

Chem1304, General Chemistry II, 2019 – 2024

Chem1306, General Chemistry, 2019 – 2024

Chem2203 Organic Chemistry Laboratory I, 2019 – 2024

Chem2204 Organic Chemistry Laboratory II, 2019 – 2024

Chem2303 Organic Chemistry I, 2019 – 2024

Chem4204 Biochemistry Laboratory, 2019 – 2024

Research

Research Projects

Description of your research projects (maximum of 3 projects)

Each with brief description ( maximum 125 words) with/without high resolution figures/pictures

Quantum Mechanical MP2 Study of the Electronic Effect of Nonplanarity on the Carbon Pyramidalization of Fullerene C60

Fullerene C60 also (called Buckminsterfullerene) was first discovered by Kroto et al in 1985 and won the Nobel Prize in 1986. Because of its unique structural, chemical, and mechanical features, fullerene have been functionalized for many purposes for cosmetics, food additives, material science, fuel cell, electrochemistry, drug delivery. The fullerene C60 features a delocalized conjugated π systme on a nonplanar spheriodal geometry, leading to a debate wheather or not it has aromaticity. Characterization of fullerene C60 in terms of natural bond orbital using MP2 method can improve understanding of structural and electronic properties of the nonplanar carbon cage based on NBO orbital and aid in development of fullerene C60 derivative nanobuds for variety applications including CO2 reductions.

Figure 1. Comparison of natural bond orbital delocalization between fullerene C60 and benzene.

The Role for Dispersion Force in the Rational Design of SMM Cobalt (II) Complexes? Insights from QM Calculation

Paramagnetic lanthanide transition metal complexes with large magnetic anisotropy enables potential applications in the fields of magnetic resonance tomography (MRT), molecular electronics, structural biology. Some of these paramagnetic complexes can retain the magnetization gained after exposure to an applied permanent magnetic field therefore are termed as single-molecule magnets (SMMs). Four Co(II) complexes designed are described in Figure 2, with a N2O2 coordination tripodal phenolate amine donor and distorted pseudo-tetrahedral structure, have been prepared and characterized in terms of the SMM properties in our collabration team. Quantum mechanical (QM) simulations will be pursued to investigate the effects of the rational desing on theirmegnatic properties.

Figure 2. Structures of four Co(II) complexes based on the ligand tripodal tetradentate phenolate amines.

  1. QM/MM Study of N501 Involved Intermolecular Interaction between SARS-CoV-2 RBD and Antibody of Human Origin

Spike (S) glycoprotein constitutes the most important protruding protein on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (of SARS-CoV-2) because S protein controls the initial attachment of SARS-CoV-2 to the receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on human respiratory epithelial cells. Asparagine-501 (N501) is located on one of CDR on light chain and has been identified as one of the six key amnio acid residues of mutation that can lower the receptor binding affinity. (QM/MM) simulation, and then quantum mechanics (QM) (MP2)/-aug-cc-pvdz calculation were applied to characterize the N501 involved intermolecular force between the S glycoprotein receptor binding domain (RBD) and the human-origin antibody B38 possessing neutralization ability.

Figure 3. (a) Location N501 in the RBD and B38 complex and Scheme for QM/MM setup; (b) Optimized H-bond network in QM region (M06L/6-31G*: AMBER). The figures were prepared using GaussView6(No hydrogen atoms were patched to the truncated peptide bond).

Journal Articles

  1. Yuemin Liu, Yunxiang Gao, Tariq Altalhi, Di-Jia Liu, and Boris I. Yakobson. A Quantum Mechanical MP2 Study of the Electronic Effect of Nonplanarity on the Carbon Pyramidalization of Fullerene C60. Nanomaterials 2024, 14(19), 1576; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano14191576
  2. Yunxiang Gao, Mohammad Tarequl. Islam, Promise Uzoamaka Otuokere, Merlyn Pulikkathara, Yuemin Liu. The Stability of UV-Defluorination-Driven Crosslinked Carbon Nanotubes: A Raman Study. Nanomaterials 2024, 14(17), 1464; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano14171464
  3. Yuemin Liu, RulongMa, Huajun Fan, Bruce R. Johnson, James M. Briggs. Pharmacophore Oriented MP2 Characterization of Charge Distribution for Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Inhibitor Nirmatrelvir. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1290, (2023) 135871 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molstruc.2023.135871)
  4. Yuemin Liu, August A.Gallo, Yucheng Liu, Michael B. Hall, Bruce R. Johnson. QM Evaluation of the Intramolecular Aromatic π-π Interactions of Ir(I) Complex Transition States. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1291, (2023) ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molstruc.2023.135907)
  5. Yuemin Liu, Hana F. Sulaiman, Bruce R. Johnson, Rulong Ma, Yunxiang Gao, Harshica Fernando, Andrea Ashley-Oyewole, Heaven N. Ingram, James M. Briggs. QM/MM Study of N501 Involved Intermolecular Interaction between SARS-CoV-2 RBD and Antibody of Human Origin. Computational Biology and Chemistry. 102, (2023) 107810. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2023.107810)
  6. Yuemin Liu, Yucheng Chen, Alan A. Pinkerton, Xiche Hu. Ligand binding: A quantum mechanics analysis of the biotin-streptavidin binging forces. Trends in Physical Chemistry. 17 (2017) 1-16
  1. Yuemin Liu, Thomas Junk. In-depth Normal Mode Analysis of Seven Prominent Raman Bands of TNT at Bond Level from Isotopic Shifts of TNT-d5. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1143, (2017) 438–443.
  2. Yuemin Liu, Richard Perkins, Yucheng Liu, Nianfeng Tzeng. Normal Mode and Experimental Analysis of TNT Raman Spectrum. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1133, (2017) 217-225.
  3. Yuemin Liu, Yucheng Liu, Siva Murru, Nianfeng Tzeng, Radhey S. Srivastava. Quantum Mechanics Study of Repulsive π-π Interaction and Flexibility of Phenyl Moiety in the Iron Azodioxide Complex. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1097 (2015) 226–230.
  4. Yuemin Liu, Thomas Junk, Yucheng Liu, Nianfeng. Tzeng and Richard Perkins. Benchmarking Quantum Mechanical Calculations with Experimental NMR Chemical Shifts of 2-HADNT. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1086 (2015) 43-48.
  5. Yuemin Liu, Yucheng Liu, August A. Gallo, Katherine D. Knierim, Eric R. Taylor, Nianfeng Tzeng. Performances of DFT methods implemented in G09 for simulations of dispersion-dominated CH-π Interaction in ligand–protein complex: A case study with glycerol-GDH. Journal of Molecular Structure. 1084 (2015) 223-228.
  1. Salah S. Massoud, Eric Taylor, Yuemin Liu, Janusz Grebowicz, Ramon Vicente, Roger Lalancette, Udai Mukhopadhyay, Ivan Bernal, and Steven F. Watkins. Synthesis, Structure, Thermal, Magnetic Properties and Quantum Mechanical Calculations of Bridged [Bis(di(2-pyridylmethyl)amine)-(μ2-1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)ethane)-tetraperchlorato-dicopper(II)] Dihydrate Complex (I). CrystEngComm 2014,16, 175-183.
  2. Yuemin Liu, August A. Gallo, Jan Florian, Wu Xu, and Rakesh Bajpai. CH···π Interactions Do Not Contribute to Hydrogen Transfer Catalysis by Glycerol Dehydratase. Phys. Chem. (2011) 115(41); 11162-11166.
  3. Yuemin Liu, August A. Gallo, Rakesh K. Bajpai, Andrei Chistoserdov, Andrew T. Nelson, Leah N. Segura and Wu Xu. The diversity and molecular modeling analysis of B12-dependent and B12-independent glycerol dehydratases. J. Bioinformatics Research and Applications. (2010) 6(5), 484-507.
  4. Yuemin Liu, August A. Gallo, Jan Florian, Yen-Shan Liu, Sandeep Mora and Wu Xu. QM/MM (ONIOM) Study of Glycerol Binding and Hydrogen Abstraction by the Coenzyme B12-Independent Dehydratase. Phys. Chem. (2010) 114(16); 5497-5502.

Conference Proceedings

( maximum 10, most recent)

ACS Southwest Regional Meeting (SWRM 2024). Oct 20 -23, 2024. Waco Convention Center, Waco, Texas 76701.