chemistry

International Chemistry Magazine Publishes K Grad’s Research

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A 2017 Kalamazoo College graduate has been published in Angewandte Chemie, a German international chemistry magazine, for his senior individualized project (SIP) involving how prescription medications interact with the human body.

John Bailey presents his research published in an international chemistry magazine
John Bailey ’17 presents research related to his senior individualized project.

John Bailey, who was a chemistry major and math minor from Midland, Mich., performed research through a group at Michigan State University focusing on aromaticity. The term describes a ring-shaped molecule that exhibits more stability than other connective arrangements with the same atoms.

The research and resulting chemistry magazine article highlights how stability involving aromaticity could allow a greater range of choices in a pharmaceutical’s design, maximizing the drug’s effect in a targeted human system without harming other systems in a patient’s body.

The article, titled “High-Field NMR Spectroscopy Reveals Aromaticity-Modulated Hydrogen Bonding (AMHB) in Heterocycle,” has no immediate effect on how drugs are formulated or prescribed. Still, the results could one day have strong clinical implications for treatment courses such as chemotherapy. As a result, the research doesn’t stand to make Bailey famous, but a positive advancement in medicine one day will have been the result of many people like Bailey collaborating and building on each other’s work.

“It feels good to have work I’ve done out there that could be helpful to other humans,” he said.

Bailey is in Kalamazoo for at least an additional year, but would eventually like to attend graduate school and end up professionally as a leader in a research lab. He credits Chemistry Professor Jeffrey Bartz and Math Professor Eric Barth for giving him the guidance and encouragement he needed to succeed with his SIP.

“Hopefully, I will have enough knowledge I can be an effective member of my community professionally and nonprofessionally,” Bailey said. “I think K did a good job letting me understand how big a place the world is and how much I need to be humble. I want to keep working hard because no one is ever done growing.”

 

K Students’ Research Relevant to Prescription Drug Discovery

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Four Kalamazoo College chemistry students from Professor Laura Furge’s lab attended the Great Lakes Drug Metabolism and Disposition Discussion Group annual meeting on May 4 and 5 in Kalamazoo. The entourage included three – Sarah Glass ’17, Christi Cho ’17 and Cydney Martell ’19 – who presented their research regarding enzymes that help the human body interact with and process prescription drugs. Their research is relevant to prescription drug discovery and treating diseases, especially in predicting how individuals will respond to their medications.

Student Research Relevant to Prescription Drug Discovery
Cydney Martell ’19 is one of three students who presented their research regarding enzymes that help the human body interact with and process prescription drugs at the the Great Lakes Drug Metabolism and Disposition Discussion Group annual meeting. Their research is relevant to prescription drug discovery and treating diseases, especially in predicting how individuals will respond to their medications.

Cho – a chemistry major from Anchorage, Alaska – says her studies could help advance clinical research that ensures drugs won’t build up to toxic levels or negatively interact with other prescription drugs. She will attend the University of Washington as a graduate student starting this fall, where she has received a Graduate School Top Scholar Award to help fund her education. Yet K has made an impression on her.

“The faculty make a really good effort to create a friendly learning environment,” Cho said. “Chemistry be challenging at times. They try to bring the fun into every aspect of it.”

Glass – from Shelbyville, Mich. – in addition to presenting research, organized and planned the event’s luncheon, providing students, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and pharmaceutical industry representatives with networking opportunities. Glass majored in chemistry at K, minored in math with a biochemistry concentration, and finished her undergraduate studies in December after just 3 1/3 years. She will start pursuing a Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University this fall.

At K, “all the chemistry faculty are extremely helpful and knowledgeable,” Glass said. “Students get a lot of hands-on experience through labs and have opportunities to get involved in research early on.”

Martell – a chemistry major from Gull Lake, Mich. – plans to further her research in K labs this summer.

“For me the annual meeting was a great experience to see how the topics I have learned in biochemistry and through research can be used to understand and critically think about current research in industry and academia.” Martell plans to attend graduate school after K, where she will earn a Ph.D. She is leaning toward teaching research in her professional career.

K chemistry major and Furge lab research associate Sabrina Leddy ’19 also attended the meeting. K Visiting Professor Kyle Furge took the 13 students from his advanced biochemistry course to the meeting’s opening plenary.

The Great Lakes Drug Metabolism and Disposition Group website says the group:

  • provides opportunities for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and senior-level associates from regional universities to meet pharmaceutical scientists and pharmacologists from various academic and industrial backgrounds;
  • promotes regional visibility of the discipline of drug metabolism and disposition science;
  • facilitates informal dialogue between pharmaceutical partners and academic laboratories; and
  • enriches interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities for those interested in drug metabolism and disposition.

K Receives $255,000 Grant From The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation

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Kalamazoo College students and researchers soon will have more effective opportunities for chemical analysis thanks to a $255,000 grant from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. The grant allows K to replace an aging nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, allowing students to analyze and identify chemical compounds and structures with state-of-the-art equipment.

Foundation president Macauley Whiting Jr. said of this charitable commitment, “The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation is deeply committed to science education as a means of vitalizing our entire region. Our history and our mission are linked to the type of innovative thinking that helps drive society forward. This grant invests in students who will lead scientific discovery in the years to come. These experiences will help prepare them for productive careers across a number of scientific fields. It would be our hope that they will choose to be part of Michigan’s future.”

NMR, like the more familiar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures used in medicine to diagnose injuries and diseases, applies a magnetic field and radio frequencies to a patient or a small chemical sample to give observable signals. These signals are like jigsaw pieces that assemble to provide a picture of what’s present. Kalamazoo College Chemistry Professor Greg Slough said nearly everything people eat, wear or consume at one point was studied with an NMR spectrometer, making the purchase central to teaching students how scientists analyze molecules. Such research helps K students gain valuable experience in their career paths and see how research applies to the real world.

“Pretty much every principle from quantum physics can now be applied in an NMR experiment and used to analyze structure,” Slough said. “When our current (spectrometer) was built around 1995, computer networking was just being implemented on a large scale. Twenty years later, scientists and students have come to demand more versatility.” With this new instrument, K students will study and collaborate with other students and research associates on campus and at their study abroad sites around the world.

Slough said essentially all biology and chemistry majors will have opportunities to use this new spectrometer. “K, in particular, emphasizes hands-on experiential learning, and this instrument will greatly enhance this in the chemical sciences,” he said.

The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation was established for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes for the public benefaction of the inhabitants of the City of Midland and of the people of the State of Michigan. K’s Dow Science Center, completed in 1992, is named in recognition of a generous grant from The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.

 

7 K Students Attend Experimental Biology, 2 Honored

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Seven Kalamazoo College students attended the annual Experimental Biology meeting in Chicago in May including two honored in the event’s undergraduate research posters competition.

Experimental Biology Posters Competition
K students Raoul Wadhwa (second from left) and Sarah Glass (second from right) received honors in the Experimental Biology undergraduate research posters competition. They are joined by professors Regina Stevens-Truss and Laura Furge.

About 225 undergraduates from across the country participated in Experimental Biology’s poster competition in the categories of:

  • proteins and enzymes;
  • metabolism, bioenergetics, lipids and signal transduction;
  • DNA, RNA, chromosomes and gene regulation; and
  • cell and developmental biology.

Sarah Glass ’17, of Shelbyville, Mich., was awarded first place in the “proteins and enzymes” posters category and received an award of $500. Raoul Wadhwa ’17 – originally from Portage, Mich., and now of Chicago – earned honorable mention recognition in “proteins and enzymes.”

The event is a joint meeting of six different societies including the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) as well as societies for physiology, nutrition, pharmacology, pathology and anatomy.

Glass said the meeting was a great opportunity to find out what’s going on in science and to practice presenting research. She is a chemistry major who will pursue a Ph.D. starting this fall at Vanderbilt University.

Glass presented research associated with her Senior Individualized Project (SIP). She investigated enzymes in the human liver that help process medicines, work that may become relevant in predicting how individuals will respond to their medications.

In contrast to Glass, it might seem strange that Wadhwa, a math major, not only participated but earned honors in an event largely attended by chemistry and biology majors. However, this project – which also was his SIP – united his interdisciplinary interests in computer science, math, biology and chemistry.

Experimental Biology Meeting in Chicago
K students Christi Cho, Sarah Glass, Raoul Wadhwa, Cydney Martell, Jacqueline Mills, Sharat Kamath and Susmitha Narisetty joined professors Laura Furge and Regina Stevens-Truss at the annual Experimental Biology meeting in Chicago.

“Something like this could only happen at K,” he said, adding he owes a “thank you” to chemistry professors Regina Stevens-Truss and Laura Furge. Their guidance helped him inside and outside the lab, especially as they coached him in professionally presenting scientific research. “This would never have happened at a big university.”

Wadhwa described his research as still being a ways off from clinical application, although he was looking at a new class of potential drug therapies that in some ways are similar to antibiotics. He helped develop software used to predict the antibacterial potential of peptides being studied in Truss’s lab, work that could one day prove vital in this age of antibiotic resistance. Wadhwa will attend the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western University starting this fall.

Other K representatives included chemistry majors Christi Cho ’17, Jacqueline Mills ’18 and Cydney Martell ’19; along with biology majors Sharat Kamath ’18 and Susmitha Narisetty ’19. Cho also presented her SIP research and Narisetty presented results from her summer internship at South Dakota State University.

Science Forum Honors K Chemistry Major’s Research

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A Kalamazoo College chemistry major was one of just four students – and the only undergraduate – honored with recognition in January at an international science forum for a poster presentation of his research.

Science Forum Eric Thornburg and Jeff Bartz
Kalamazoo College chemistry major Eric Thornburg was one of just four students honored with recognition in January at an international science forum for a poster presentation of his research.

Eric Thornburg ’17, a Kalamazoo native, presented research on the photodissociation dynamics of nitrous acid, known through the molecular structure of HONO, at the Pacific Conference on Spectroscopy and Dynamics from Jan. 19-22 in Asilomar, Calif.

Spectroscopy measures light in terms of how materials emit, absorb or scatter it. In simple terms, the research, conducted over two years in Dow Science Center’s laser lab at K, furthers investigations into how the atmosphere attempts to reverse climate change as a result of nitrous acid and what humans might do about it.

The conference, touted by its website as one of the longest-running scientific conferences in the U.S., provides a forum for the dissemination and discussion of the latest results in chemistry and physics, and their confluence with biology.

Thornburg said this forum “provided a cool window into what my future holds. It’s great to be around people doing such a high level of work. I always hear about it, but rarely do we get to match faces and people with their experiments. In the future, (scientists) will have to collaborate more and more.”

Still, Thornburg didn’t realize he had been recognized in this way until after he returned to Kalamazoo. He and Chemistry Department Chair Jeffrey Bartz were reading the Journal of Physical Chemistry when they came across Thornburg’s name, mentioning the honor.

“It is really an honor that people saw my research and wanted to commend it,” Thornburg said. “I feel more prepared moving forward to contribute to conferences and the scientific community.”

Thornburg, who also minors in German, said K is an extraordinary place for math and science. He credits fellow students Marlon Gonzalez, Joyce Nguyen and Mia Orlando; recent K alumni Jeremy Lantis ’16 and Mara Birndorf ’16; and Bartz for integral assistance in performing the research.

“I’ve had a chance to work closely with Dr. Bartz, while sitting down and discussing how to implement this research,” Thornburg said. “He’d look at me and say, ‘What do you want to do?’ You don’t get that at a place that’s not like K.”

Thornburg will attend the University of Illinois this fall to seek his Ph.D. in chemistry.

 

Undergraduates Present Research

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Undergrad Present ResearchFifteen Kalamazoo College students joined three of their teachers (professors Dwight Williams, Santiago Salinas and Ellen Robertson)  to present research at the 2016 West Michigan Regional Undergraduate Science Research Conference (WMRUGS) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The annual conference provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to present their own research to a large and supportive group of professional scientists. K was well represented with sophomores, juniors, and seniors in attendance from both the Departments of Biology and Chemistry: Suma Alzouhayli ’17 (Chemistry and Biology), John Bailey ’17 (Chemistry), Christi Cho ’17 (Chemistry), Quinton Colwell ’17 (Chemistry), Rachel Fadler ’17 (Chemistry), Sarah Glass ’17 (Chemistry), Sharat S. Kamath ’19, Christina Keramidas ’18 (Chemistry and Biology), Cydney Martell ’19 (Chemistry), Garret Miller ’16 (Chemistry), Susmitha Narisetty ’19 (Biology), Darren Peel ’17 (Biology), Collin Steen ’17 (Chemistry), Myles Truss ’17 (Chemistry), Raoul Wadhwa ’17 (Chemistry and Computer Science). In addition to presenting their research, students heard a keynote address and research talks by undergraduate and graduate students from regional colleges and universities. This free event also provided undergraduate researchers the opportunity to interact face-to-face with graduate school recruiters and to learn more about future career opportunities.

There were 169 undergraduate posters presented at WMRUGS from students representing 17 different college and universities. Ten students from the Kalamazoo College Department of Chemistry, presented results of their research conducted under the mentorship of Kalamazoo College faculty that included Laura Furge, Regina Stevens-Truss, and Dwight Williams. Other students presented the results of their summer research projects conducted in laboratories at Indiana University and the University of Oregon. Students from the Department of Biology presented their findings from research conducted this past summer in laboratories at South Dakota State University and Michigan State University.

K Alumna Elected to ACS Director Post

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Christina BodurowChristina C. Bodurow ’79, senior director of external sourcing in the medicines development unit at Eli Lilly & Co. (Indianapolis), has been elected the District II Director for the American Chemical Society for 2017-2019. District II includes counties in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. At K Christina majored in chemistry. She served in student government, participated on the Hornet tennis and swimming teams, and played in the Jazz Band. She studied abroad in Erlangen, Germany. Christina earned her Ph.D. in organic/organometallic chemistry at Princeton University (1984). After graduate school she began her career at Eli Lilly in the chemical process research division. She led the early phase development of a number of neuroscience medicines, including the global submissions of nine new chemical entities. Kalamazoo College congratulates Christina on her ACS election.

Summer Science Shared

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Summer ScienceScientific inquiry takes no summer break at Kalamazoo College, and a culmination of the summer’s work occurred at the Dow Science Center Mini Poster Session (August 26). In the chemistry department alone some 17 students worked in the laboratories of five chemistry faculty–Professors Bartz, Furge, Smith, Stevens-Truss and Williams. Those students include first-years, sophomores, juniors and seniors, many of the latter working on their Senior Individualized Projects. The mini poster session included 12 presenters explaining the science they had conducted during the summer. Quinton Colwell ’17 (in the red tie) is pictured discussing his poster, titled “Molecular Dynamics and Real-Life Drug Metabolism.” Molecular dynamics is the study of real life systems using computer models and simulations. Colwell’s work involved a relatively novel technique,biased molecular dynamics, which, he wrote, “brings an additional layer to computer simulations relevant to bench-top experiments. It has the potential to be a game-changer.” In addition to Colwell, other presenters included Sarah Glass ’17, Myles Truss ’17, Shreya Bahl ’17, Suma Alzouhayli ’17, and Blake Beauchamp ’17.

K Joins WMed to help local students dream big and enter pipeline to health science careers

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SC07417Kalamazoo College welcomes 24 local high school students to campus this week for Early Introductions to Health Careers Level II (EIH-II), a cooperative program between K and Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed).

The program intends to foster biomedical science and health career aspirations for underrepresented minorities and disadvantaged high school students, grades 10-12, in Kalamazoo County. Students will participate in interactive-presentations, hands-on lab experiments, note-booking, and be exposed to physicians, health professionals in allied health, and basic scientists.

The program is designed to improve students problem solving and critical thinking skills and “help them dream a little bigger and have fun,” said Dawn DeLuca, Healthcare Career Pathways Coordinator, Office of Health Equity and Community Affairs. According to DeLuca, EIH-II is part of Kalamazoo County’s first pipeline educational initiative for health professions. It also includes EHI Level I, a program for elementary school students, and Kalamazoo Education Enrichment Pre-Med Summer Program (KEEPS), a program for students in their first two years of college.

SC07430Two Kalamazoo College students are involved in KEEPS, which aims to add to the development of current undergraduate students who are science majors and interested in pursuing health professional careers through their participation as mentors and teaching assistants. The K students and high school students will also spend time with current WMed students, which include eight K alumni.

Laura Furge, Ph.D., associate provost and Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry at K is leading EIH-II students through numerous presentations and experiments in K’s Dow Science Center this week. Among students’ activities will be learning basic lab safety and practices, talking about sodas and calculating how much soda they drink, conducting extraction and HPLC experiments, learning about enzymes via “toothpickase” activity, looking at the structure of proteins through 3D printing, and hosting a notebook competition and poster tour in Dow.

SC07426“Pipeline, pre-professional and enrichment programs are an important strategy for addressing the educational achievement gaps and diversifying the health professions and shortage of underrepresented minorities in the health professions,” said DeLuca.

“We believe it may also contribute to reducing health disparities in students’ communities through their improved knowledge about health, social determinants of health, and active citizenship through service learning with community organizations.”

PUI Paragon

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Kalamazoo College Chemistry Professor Laura FurgeLaura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry, is a feature profile in a recent ASBMB Today, the professional development magazine of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The article, titled “Working at a PUI,” focuses on the demands and rewards faculty face at “primarily undergraduate institutions.” Turns out rewards and demands may be so intertwined they’re indistinguishable.  For example, Furge’s academic wheelhouse is biochemistry, and yet she also teaches classes in organic chemistry and general chemistry and even a first-year writing seminar on cancer. The latter has become one of her favorite classes, a case in point of the demand-and-reward hybrid. Furge also notes that at PUIs the professor is the inter-generational “continuity of knowledge.” That vital function requires patience and broader skills on the part of the professor (demand) and makes a PUI professor-investigator-mentor like Furge the progenitor of generations of chemists and chemistry educators–think of Sarah in the Book of Genesis or Celeste in Edward P. Jones’ novel The Known World. That latter reference underscores another for Furge’s great strengths (one the PUI article misses): a fierce commitment to the liberal arts. The Known World was Kalamazoo College’s Summer Common Reading choice in 2007. Furge sits on the committee that selects these works. She also will begin her duties as associate provost at Kalamazoo College beginning July 1.