Oct17
Posted on Oct 17 by
After spending the past summer investigating the effects of selected DNA aptamers on the morphology and crystallinity of calcium carbonate, Alex plans on testing the aptamer’s affinity to calcium carbonate. Although the crystallinity and morphology experiments are done for now, there are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding the relationship between the aptamers and calcium carbonate; and hopefully the affinity experiments can answer some of them. To begin the affinity experiments, mineralized calcium carbonate is needed to test the aptamers. Alex hypothesizes there will be a correlation between the results from the summer and the affinity...
Oct11
Posted on Oct 11 by
Amanda has made her start in the lab by making her own collagen hydrogels! She has been making them with Kassidy, who is also teaching her how to mineralize and lyophilize the collagen hydrogels. After Amanda had made her second set, it was time for her to start mineralizing them in different concentrations of poly-aspartic acid. Amanda will then lyophilize and take IR of her three gels. She has just started this project, but she is already learning so...
Oct02
Posted on Oct 2 by
Research isn’t only about working in the lab but being able to analyze, interpret and write up results and data. Stephanie and Alex have loads of data from the summer that have already been analyzed and interpreted. Now, they are working on writing an abstract so they are able to present at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society Conference in Philadelphia. This would be Stephanie’s and Alex’s first time presenting their research at a...
Sep17
Posted on Sep 17 by
Kassidy has moved out of summer vacation mode and jumped back into the lab to continue research with collagen. She decided to do a quick experiment on the difference between using a PBS solution versus a collagen neutralization solution when preparing the hydrogels. After careful observation, it was found that the gels appeared the same with both solutions, based on thickness, color, and texture. Thus, Kassidy decided to continue her research using the PBS solution because all the previous data is from gels created using a PBS solution. Kassidy was also able to reduce her reaction incubation time from 7 days to 2 hours! This mini experiment was an easy transition from vacation back to research and really got Kassidy excited to be back in the...
Sep05
Posted on Sep 5 by
The GRAB Lab members would like to extend a warm welcome to all students back on campus for the start of the fall semester. We’ve been here all summer and we’ve missed you! We’d especially like to welcome all the future research students! If you’re coming back as a sophomore or junior or just getting here as a first year student, you might want to think about getting involved with campus research. Ask a professor or ask a student who’s already involved in research. See you in the lab...
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...
