Bringing you the latest news from the Gerdon Research Group
Dr. Gerdon had a great day at Pittcon Conference + Exposition in Boston last week! Thanks to Dr. Michelle Kovarik for the invitation to present in the Future of Analytical Chemistry Education session. It was great to share our work at Emmanuel College (Boston) on social justice in the chemistry...
After making it through half the spring semester, Mia is making progress with her research. The lipid nanoparticle powder proved to be difficult to work with at first, but after identifying the usefulness of sucrose, the process is slowly coming along. Originally the pure and dry lipid nanoparticles were too sticky and did not grind well into a powder. Upon the addition of sucrose before the freezing and drying process, the powder became finer and more crystalline allowing for a more identifiable fingerprint under fluorescence. Mia hopes that she will find the ideal amount of sucrose to be added to the lipid nanoparticles for effective and clear application to fingerprints. With the end of the spring semester quickly approaching, Mia looks forward to job searching and hopefully securing a job soon after...
The spring semester is moving fast (faster than expected). Exams are unfortunately beginning, ACS is just around the corner, graduation is approaching, and research is coming along very slowly. Juan has made many changes to the QCM Y-junction set-up, and a pause has been placed on dynamic experiments. Currently, the flow-cell chamber has been removed to mimic static experiment conditions, and control mineralization experiments with this flow-cell have been conducted. Hopefully, a mass increase will be seen (fingers...
After a super busy Holiday season, Dennis is back and ready for a busy research semester! The ACS Conference is inching closer, but there are still lots of things he wants to do to add to his poster. He is getting back to calcium phosphate mineralization experiments after a break from that to focus on synthesizing stable and larger nanoparticles. The mineralization kinetics of these new nanoparticles with a tiopronin coating will be compared to the nanoparticles with a glutathione coating. Outside of research, graduation is approaching, and the job search is an interesting process to say the least. Overall, he is excited to see how the experiments and the semester will turn...
The beginning of spring semester has begun! Georgia has a packed semester but is also excited to get back into research after the break. She is trying a new method for visualizing her DNA arrays that involves floating a TEM (transmission electron microscopy) grid on solution in a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tube that contains her reactants. She is hopeful that it will work out! Spring semester also means summer is one semester closer, and although she is sad to see the seniors graduate, she is also excited to meet the new student researchers joining the...
This post is a bit overdue, but Happy New Year and welcome to research in our Spring 2025 semester. Group meetings started back up last week and we have an amazing group of researchers – Marissa, Dennis, Juan, Mia, and Georgia – moving forward in the lab this semester. We also have lots of interest from first, second, and third year students looking to jump into research. While it is sad to say that the seniors will be leaving us at the end of this semester through graduation and commencement, we’ll have new researchers learning the ropes soon. We also have a very busy and exciting semester before us that includes a trip to San Diego for the Spring ACS Conference (5 of us from the group are going and many more from the department), Distinction in the Field presentations for Juan and Marissa at the end of the semester, plans for summer research already in the works, and the Notre Dame Cristo Rey science fair projects that some of us will be helping to judge. Oh, not to...