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Analytical and Biomaterials Undergraduate Chemistry Research

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Jun13

Juan Alejandro ’25 – All the QCM Instruments

Posted on Jun 13 by

Summer research has finally begun and is already almost halfway done! Juan’s time with the GRAB Lab is coming to an end soon, and this will be his last summer of research at Emmanuel College. Although there have been some small set-backs (which involved switching to a different QCM instrument), the summer has been busy and much has been accomplished. Some small achievements made this summer include exploring the detection of calcium using fluorescence, the use of AFM for surface characterization, determining the thickness and amount of collagen being applied, and much more! There are so many goals set for this summer…hopefully he can accomplish them...

Jun07

Marissa Diplacido ’25 – Welcome back to research!

Posted on Jun 7 by

Marissa is excited to be back in Boston working on her research with gold nanoparticles. Now that the stressful spring semester has concluded, she can now place her full attention on her research. She has started work in developing new methods to characterize her nanoparticles, particularly in agarose gel electrophoresis to differentiate charges. She also aims to make progress on mineralization with nanoparticles, along with other experiments. Outside of research, she plans to traverse the Boston area and take advantage of the relatively cooler days before it heats up in July. This will be her last summer living in Boston so she wants to make the most of the time she has...

May29

Welcome to Research – Summer 2024!

Posted on May 29 by

Undergraduate researchers in the Department of Chemistry & Physics gathered on Friday to celebrate the start of the summer with fantastic Thai food, tasty burgers, and gigantic paper airplanes. It’s harder than it looks to make a good paper airplane out of an old research poster, but still a ton of fun. Welcome to Juan, Marissa, Georgia, and Dennis as they carry on the GRAB Lab tradition of amazing summer research progress. See you in the...

May29

Congratulations GRAB Lab Grads of 2024!

Posted on May 29 by

Saturday, May 18th brought a beautiful and celebratory commencement exercise to campus at Emmanuel College! It also brought to an end a wonderful and productive research experience for these four amazing GRAB Lab seniors. Congrats to Donalissa, Kristy, Sydney, and Hailey! You brought tremendous enthusiasm for chemistry, nanoparticles, collagen, origami, calcium, TEM, AFM, ICP, NMR, fluorescence and so much more. You also brought your growing expertise in each of your areas of study. THANK YOU for being what is always the best part of this group – you! The chemistry is pretty great too. Godspeed on all of your future chemistry fun and make sure you return to campus...

May14

Juan Alejandro ’25 – Say Less

Posted on May 14 by

With the semester coming to an end, Juan gets ready for a summer full of research! Although many current GRAB Lab members will be graduating and missed, the research must go on! There are many plans for the summer. Currently, experimental methods on decreasing the amount of collagen on the surface of the quartz crystal are being conducted in hopes of seeing a decrease in frequency, indicating an increase of mineral mass. Hopefully, a decrease in frequency will be seen this summer (fingers are...

May14

Marissa Diplacido ’25 – Taking Inspiration

Posted on May 14 by

As the semester is wrapping up, Marissa is looking forward to new experiments to be conducted over the summer. As the place experiments are progressing and seem to be working, there are new ideas on how to characterize these nanoparticles. After discussing with several people during the ACS Conference, she plans to run the nanoparticles through a relatively high agarose gel to see how different charges and sizes separate. In the meantime, she is back to synthesize even more nanoparticles to continue the place...