Mar31

Amanda Gilbert ’22 – Affinity for Collagen

Posted on Mar 31 by

This semester, Amanda has been running lots of affinity experiments with collagen hydrogels and DNA aptamers! This is a new experiment for Amanda, who has worked on mineralization experiments up until this point. For these experiments, the collagen hydrogels are much smaller than what she was previously working with! She has also learned how to use the plate reader, which is an instrument she’s never used before. There’s still more work to be done with these affinity experiments, so she’ll be very busy this...

Mar23

Dr. Gerdon – Quality TEM time

Posted on Mar 23 by

Dr. Gerdon spent some quality time at the Electron Microscopy Facility at Harvard Medical School this week! The goal was to get images of the different nanoparticle syntheses that Rylie and Dianna have been working it. Time at the instrument reminded Dr. Gerdon of first learning TEM from the incomparable Dr. Joe Slocik at Vanderbilt University many years ago. Back in those days we developed film to get our images! The CCD camera is a lot nicer these...

Mar22

New Course – Chemistry of Brewing!

Posted on Mar 22 by

Dr. Gerdon is excited to be designing and teaching a new course this coming Fall 2021 called the Chemistry of Brewing. There’s tons of chemistry in the process of brewing from water chemistry to polysaccharides to alpha acids to yeast biochemistry. This is going to be a fun class and is open to all students (no science prerequisite)! It’s not designed for the chemistry major (not a chemistry elective), but could be a fun general elective!...

Mar19

Dianna Shields ’22 – Getting Place Exchanged Started

Posted on Mar 19 by

This semester, Dianna is learning how to multitask! She has been working on producing quality tiopronin nanoparticle batches while also starting the place exchange reaction. Dianna also completed a colloid nanoparticle synthesis and is excited to visualize them using TEM! As always, Dianna is happy to be in lab, taking NMRs, and synthesizing lots of nanoparticles to use for place exchange. Here’s to a safe and successful semester back on...

Mar14

Rylie Bolarinho ’22 – One Year Away from the Lab

Posted on Mar 14 by

Rylie is very excited to finally come back to the research lab after being away for almost one year! When she left the lab, Rylie had just finished her first nanoparticle synthesis using mercaptobenzoic acid. Since she has come back to campus, Rylie has already completed two syntheses that are ready to be analyzed using NMR. She is hopeful that these new syntheses show the presence of nanoparticles, so she can use TEM to further analyze her samples. This semester Rylie is hopeful to perfect her nanoparticle synthesis and possibly begin a new affinity...

Feb25

Julia Japo ’23 – Gabby’s Shadow

Posted on Feb 25 by

It is Julia’s second week in the lab. She has been shadowing Gabby in regard to her work with QCM (Quartz Crystal Microbalance) measurements of collagen mineralization. Julia has worked on preparing calcium phosphate solutions necessary to mineralize collagen! She is excited to learn as much as she can and possibly start her own project in the...