Aug16
Posted on Aug 16 by
Dr. Aren Gerdon has recently been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to support research with undergraduate students at Emmanuel College. The NSF will provide over $350,000 over a three year period to Dr. Gerdon and research students to enable the proposed work on “DNA and nanoparticle assemblies as biomimetic templates for calcium phosphate mineralization”. The grant is part of the Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program and comes from the Division of Materials Research, Biomaterials (DMR, BMAT). This is the second time that Dr. Gerdon and his students have been funded by the NSF and Dr. Gerdon commented that, “The wonderful thing about this support from the NSF is that you only get funded a second time if you were successful the first time. The undergraduate research students who dedicated themselves to these projects over the past five to ten years produced the results, publications, and conference presentations that demonstrated the high level of research done at Emmanuel College. Our past students, now alumni, made this funding possible. In doing so, they opened the door for current and...
Aug02
Posted on Aug 2 by
Summer research for 2019 is coming to a close and student State of the Project Reports are on the immediate horizon. These reports and presentations are a great opportunity for student researchers, Alex, Stephanie, and Easwer, to dive into data analysis and to do their best to explain their results from the summer. This is not always an easy task, but some time for reflection on the Charles River always helps. The group encountered a significant obstacle this year known as cyanobacteria…. In hopes of avoiding a rash, we made the trek up-river to the Harvard neighborhood where the waters were cleaner. It was a beautiful day on the river. Now on to those...
Aug02
Posted on Aug 2 by
Congrats to Jake for making “front page” news on the Emmanuel College website for the recent publication by Jake, Dr. Gerdon, and researchers Alex Paige, Krista Meserve, and Jason Miech. Great work and great...
Aug02
Posted on Aug 2 by
A proposal to the National Science Foundation titled ” MRI: Acquisition of a High Resolution Scanning Electron Microscope to Enhance Research Collaborations and Educational Needs among Colleges and Universities in the New England Area” has been approved for funding! This grant brings over $425,000 to Colleges and Universities in the New England area for the purchase of a top of the line Scanning Electron Microscopy instrument. Chemists at Emmanuel College contributed to this proposal and Emmanuel College is listed as a major user of the new instrument. This means that undergraduate students at Emmanuel will have new access to amazing materials characterization tools useful in chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and more. The instrument will be hosted at UMass Boston. Congrats to the Primary Investigators and to all student researchers. See the award post here....
Jul10
Posted on Jul 10 by
GRAB Lab research alumni and current research students met for an annual gathering (nucleation?) in the Fenway neighborhood. It is great to see some familiar faces and to hear about the progress and success that chemistry research alumni are making. Current students get to hear about what lies ahead in the “real world” and former researchers get to hear about what’s happening with mineralization and malaria research today. It is an annual event that everyone looks forward to and draws alumni from the past decade. Thank you all for coming out to catch up and to play a few games of ping-pong, pool, and shuffle board too. Best of luck to all on new adventures in the coming...
Jul09
Posted on Jul 9 by
Easwer is new to the team and has spent his summer synthesizing and experimenting with the conjugation of an antibody to a porphyrin nanoparticle. He has been learning how to use instruments such as Dynamic Light Scattering, Probe Sonication, and Anodic Stripping Voltammetry and is excited to learn more. He has been learning a new method for purification called Size Exclusion Chromatography, which will be helpful when differentiating and identifying different molecules involved in the experiment. Easwer is trying SEC for the first time and was enamored by the settling particles in the...
