Jun20
Posted on Jun 20 by
Trouble-shooting experimental design is an every day task in the research lab. We are always trying to improve our experiments, optimize a parameter, or fine-tune the set up. Sometimes that aspect of research is the most fun! It can be even more exciting when experimental design means actually building an instrument (or a tiny part of a fluidic cell). If you need a special part, why not just 3D print it? Dr. Gerdon did some design, printed something at home, broke it, went to the Discovery Lab on campus, got some help, printed some more, tried it out, thought it was going to be amazing! Didn’t work. But we quickly pivoted to a new option that seems to work well! So, don’t give up, bounce back, and keep trying. Too bad the 3D print wasn’t what we needed, because it was...
Jun17
Posted on Jun 17 by
Ann-Lee is ready to ABSORB all this new chemistry knowledge through her time in research. In five weeks in the lab, she’s been researching mineralization of nanoparticles and DNA aptamers. She’s also been using a brand-new plate reader to track absorbance and will soon use gel electrophoresis and dynamic light scattering. Over the course of the summer, she hopes to learn new instruments that she can master when analyzing...
Jun09
Posted on Jun 9 by
Going with the flow! It’s already week 3 of summer research! Time moves fast when there are so many things to learn and so many experiments to run. Lana has jumped right into running QCM and collagen experiments and is quickly getting the hang of things. With a focus on dynamic mineralization, she has been trying out a new procedure that incorporates a peristaltic pump and recirculation of the mineralization solution. Would promising results thus far, she hopes to continue optimizing this new method in preparation for other experiments in the...
Jun03
Posted on Jun 3 by
Our very own Georgia Kazis ’27 was recently featured in the Summer Research Series at Emmanuel College. Check out what Georgia and Dr. Gerdon have to say about summer research on campus and about our awesome discoveries! https://www.emmanuel.edu/pulse/news/summer-research-series-dna-origami...
Jun03
Posted on Jun 3 by
With summer in full swing, Georgia has jumped back into research. She is currently exploring different methods to image her grids before they are sent off for TEM analysis. She’s particularly excited to be working with the fluorescence microscope again and appreciates the flexibility of her summer schedule, which allows her the time to do more time-intensive types of analysis. With the end of this phase of the project in sight, Georgia is eager to make significant progress over the coming...
May20
Posted on May 20 by
The weather doesn’t quite feel like summer yet in Boston, but research is heating up in the Wilkens Science Center! We have a great new group with Georgia Kazis ’27 in the lead as a return researcher and Lana Dang ’27 and Ann-Lee Coriolan ’28 as new GRAB Lab members. Ellie Vanhille ’26 and Donald Ulwick ’26 are joining remotely to share some of their work over the summer as well. We’re planning on some joint meetings with Dr. Nathan Lau’s group and will try to get to know all the researchers in the building. Our main areas of focus this summer include finishing up DNA origami mineralization, collagen mineralization on QCM, and gold nanoparticle-DNA aptamer conjugation experiments. This is a great group and they are going to stay...
