Dec11
Posted on Dec 11 by
The entire research team took a well-earned break to end the semester with the time-honored tradition of a trip to Tasty Burger! It was a working lunch – Dr. Gerdon, per usual, made sure everyone shared three successes of the semester and three goals for next semester. We also enjoyed some tots, kids meals, and delicious burgers. Congrats to the whole team on awesome experiments, big successes and learning moments, and on continuing to move forward. Now we focus on exams and then regroup in the new year to keep progress...
Dec11
Posted on Dec 11 by
Micro-credentialing is a recent method for instilling skills into students and workers to ensure that they are prepared for the field they are trying to enter. It was my duty to create a protocol using micro-credentials that could test students’ knowledge in gas chromatography mass spectrometry. A mixture with a known pollutant was prepared and given to the students to analyze with GC-MS. It will be their job to use the instrument on their own and isolate this known pollutant with the protocol that I prepare for...
Nov05
Posted on Nov 5 by
Congratulations are in order for awesome research students in the GRAB Lab! Congrats to Gwyn Gagnon ’26 for winning the Best Poster Award for the entire Gamma Sigma Epsilon conference that took place in Pennsylvania in October. Congrats to Ann-Lee Coriolan ’28 for being selected as a co-recipient of the Catherine McLaughlin Hakim ’70 Prize, awarded annually to a “high-achieving student in the summer science research...
Nov05
Posted on Nov 5 by
This fall marks Noah’s first semester conducting research in the lab, and it’s been an exciting learning experience so far! Recently, he’s been focusing on studying the demineralization process of mouse teeth using lactic acid or EDTA (ethylenediaminetetracetic acid) and confirming the results through infrared (IR) spectroscopy. By comparing the IR spectra of demineralized and fully mineralized teeth, he’s been able to observe key changes in phosphate peaks that indicate mineral loss. Each week brings new techniques and challenges, from refining sample prep to planning future experiments with thin sectioning the teeth using the microtome, and calcein staining with fluorescence microscopy. Noah is looking forward to seeing how the project develops over the rest of this semester and into next, as there’s still so much to explore and learn about how these processes can inform future biomaterial regeneration...
Nov03
Posted on Nov 3 by
As midterms have come to an end, Gwyn is in full swing in the lab! After a few weeks of trial and error, she has finally found a synthesis method for carbon dots that producing samples that emit different colors of light. Very soon she hopes to separate these carbon dots into their different colors. Gwyn is excited to continue working in the lab towards her distinction project and conduct some spooky spectroscopy right in time for...
Oct27
Posted on Oct 27 by
Ann-Lee is starting her first Fall semester incorporating research into her school life. After having a productive summer, there’s only a few more experiments left to wrap up the current nanoparticle research segment. Whilst she thinks about more data that could be incorporated into a future publication, she has been exploring different types of mineralization experiments at 37 degrees C! She hopes to learn more about nanoparticle mineralization kinetics while turning up the heat, and maybe it can teach us something...
