Feb24
Posted on Feb 24 by
The GRAB Open Lab event returned to campus this spring! The goal of the event is to open our lab doors to any student, faculty, or staff member of our community so that they feel welcome in science and the Wilkens Science Center. Safety is a first priority, so the entire research group was on hand to help participants out along the way. The participants this year were largely first year students hoping to learn more about what chemistry research is like on campus. After hearing about our NSF-funded research goals, they got into the lab to try some “unscripted” experiments within the bounds of our research. The students ran into some challenges and some unknowns that are so common to research, but were able to find a way to make adjustments to their method to see the influence of nanoparticles, DNA, acids, and bases on calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate mineralization. Thank you to everyone for participating! Funding provided by the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research...
Feb18
Posted on Feb 18 by
Grace is excited to spend her last semester at Emmanuel with the GRAB lab team! She’s excited to continue working on her SPME and headspace extraction of volatile molecules project and hopefully pass on her knowledge to the next generation of chemists! Hailey, a new member of the GRAB Lab, was able to get into the lab with Grace and learn a little more about GC/MS and SPME. Obviously, Hailey was excited to ignite some of the volatile molecules of interest! Grace is looking forward to all there is to come in this last semester including the ACS conference in...
Feb18
Posted on Feb 18 by
Julia has been excited to get back into the lab this semester! She has had some bumps along the road with experiments and the instruments but with the help of Dr. Gerdon, experiments seem to be heading in the right direction! She is looking forward to progressing this project during her internship this semester and getting more research experience! She has learned that it is ok for an experiment to not go smoothly or be perfect as long as you learn from it and understand what to do next time. She is also looking forward to the ACS conference this semester and being able to present on this...
Feb14
Posted on Feb 14 by
Although it seems like Dianna was just a freshman emailing Dr. Gerdon inquiring about the GRAB Lab, Spring 2022 will be Dianna’s final semester at Emmanuel as she graduates in May. There are lots of exciting things to look forward to including the DNA linker exchange experiment with her Tiopronin-PEG nanoparticles, the ACS Conference in March, and the upcoming Open Lab event. Dianna is excited to close off her last year at Emmanuel being productive in the lab and helping out new GRAB Lab members in starting their...
Jan07
Posted on Jan 7 by
(Belated) congrats to two superstar alumni from Emmanuel College and from the GRAB Lab. In the past few months Aimee Sanford and Keith Baillargeon defended their doctoral theses to earn their PhDs in chemistry. Dr. Gerdon was really happy to attend both defenses via Zoom and is super proud of Dr. Sanford (Emory University) and Dr. Baillargeon (Tufts University). Aimee and Keith worked together in the lab at Emmanuel and rocked their Distinction in the Field projects before graduating in 2016. Keith was working on Precipitation SELEX, learning the tools of a molecular biologist. Aimee was deep in microfluidics, being an analytical chemist and a mechanical engineer. In graduate school, the tables turned! Aimee has gone one to do amazing work in structure-switching SELEX for biosensor development and Keith went head-first into analytical chemistry to develop portable and cost-efficient systems for blood analysis in the field. Both have extremely bright futures ahead of them and current GRAB Lab members are inspired! Here’s a throw back to ACS Boston in...
Dec07
Posted on Dec 7 by
The semester is quickly coming to a close and attention is shifting to final projects and final exams. This was a good opportunity for the group to reflect on the semester over delicious donuts from Union Square Donuts! Research students talked about learning new chemistry and getting to really get comfortable working with new instruments such as ICP-AES, NMR, qPCR, and more. Everyone was happy with progress made on research projects, but we all know that leads to new goals and new aspirations for the next experiment. The seniors are starting to talk about jobs and grad programs. New sophomore research students are reading literature and learning the ropes. We’re all really excited for the chance to get to the ACS conference in San Diego in March! It’s been a great semester and we can’t wait for what comes...
