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...
Dec02
Posted on Dec 2 by
Dianna has been back in the lab after a hiatus this summer making progress on the nanoparticle project. She has improved upon her original nanoparticle synthesis protocol and started working on the PEG attachment protocol. As the semester comes to a close, Dianna hopes to obtain TEM and 1H NMR spectra of her TMPCs with PEG attached to the surface. Overall, it’s been a productive semester in...
Dec02
Posted on Dec 2 by
Luz has continued to work towards understanding the influence of different textiles on the GC-MS analysis of combustible materials, with an eye on forensics applications. Luz has been working with several different textiles and diesel standards in acetone. Due to technical difficulties with an unhappy computer, she had a frustrating time in lab. This was disappointing since it has been a week since she’s been in lab after the holidays and she is eager to finish and gathering data. This is a good reminder that research is exciting, but not always easy and often times frustrating. At our weekly group meeting teammates were able to listen to Luz, sympathize with the frustration, and share similar stories of delay, delay, delay….followed by eventual success! Luz will be back in the lab tomorrow to get the GC-MS back on track. She was able to prep textile samples to be ready for the next...
