Aug25
Posted on Aug 25 by
After four beautiful years of hard work, successes and failures, and support from the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research, the group’s RUI grant came to a close. Through this award the group was extremely successful in developing, characterizing, and using a new analytical tool integrating mass analysis (QCM) and optical microscopy with microfluidic solution control. Check out the paper in Sensors and Actuators B and look forward to a new publication in the coming months. The SELEX team also came through with amazing results in selecting aptamers that influence mineralization and have a high affinity and selectivity for HAP. Check out the publication in Chemical Communications and look for more publications in the next year. A big thanks and congratulations to all the undergraduate and high school researchers involved in this work! Hillary, Tori, Geoff, Sarah, Sam, Greg, Keith, Darren, Juliann, Aimee, Josh, Jack, Katerina, David, Jason, Krista, Jake, Emma, and many more – Thank...
Jul28
Posted on Jul 28 by
Research alumni, from the Class of 2011 to the Class of 2017, returned to the Fenway to meet the current undergraduate researchers, catch up with Dr. Gerdon, and catch up with each other. This is always a great opportunity, once a year, to make new introductions and to hear about the successes and challenges of science and life. It was so great to see everyone and for so many to come back to campus. You have all made for my great years of research! Dr....
Jul25
Posted on Jul 25 by
As a busy summer of experiments and hard work finally comes to an end, the entire GRAB lab team gets out of the lab to spend a day on the wonderful Charles River in Boston. Kayaking is a fun way spend some quality time bonding outside of the lab! As Bobby Tzepos begins to conclude his summer research, he looks back and realizes how much progress he’s made on the malaria biomarker experiments. After working on the electrochemical portion of the test for a year and a half now, he found a very low limit of detection! Moving along in the project, Bobby has been working on magnetic bead-antibody coupling the past few weeks and now changes gears toward the coupling of antibodies to cobalt porphyrin nanoparticles! It has been an exciting summer with great data and he can’t wait to start putting the entire plan...
Jul10
Posted on Jul 10 by
A multi-year collaboration between Dr. Gerdon and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA has led to a recent publication in the Journal of Chemical Education. This project involved students in the Analytical Chemistry course at Emmanuel College, but also general chemistry and analytical chemistry students at three other colleges across the country. The publication reports on “Supplemental Learning in the Laboratory: An Innovative Approach for Evaluating Knowledge and Method Transfer” and focuses on how new analytical techniques, or variations on existing techniques, could be taught to scientists across the country using online technology. Check out the abstract...
Jul03
Posted on Jul 3 by
Jason Miech’18 has developed a new procedure for deconstructing microfluidic flow cells. This can allow for further analysis of the mineral via FT-IR microscopy, SEM, and AFM. These techniques will be able to more accurately access the width, height, and morphology of the formed...
Jun14
Posted on Jun 14 by
During his summer research, Jake is studying how a G-quadruplex in DNA affects calcium phosphate mineralization. These mineralization experiments (like the one shown above), are prepared in 96-well plates and put in a plate reader to measure absorbance over time. He hypothesizes that the presence of a G-quadruplex should promote mineralization. However, he has been seeing strange “blips” (anomalies in the measurement) in his data which is what he is currently trying to eliminate by testing different calcium:phosphate concentrations as well as salt...
