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Alex Thompson ’13 has an impressive resume, particularly for someone who has only just completed his undergraduate degree. He’s worked on multiple research projects in chemistry and biology, spent a summer working at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, interned at biotechnology company Genentech in San Francisco, co-authored a paper in The Journal of Organic Chemistry, and co-authored a chapter in the recently released book Hetereocyclic Chemistry in Drug Discovery. This fall he’ll be adding to his impressive list of accomplishments and beginning a Ph.D. program in chemistry at Yale University.

Enzymes and proteins, typically when left unattended or unprotected, can easily lose their structural integrity and fall apart. Sol-Gel is an emerging material that helps encapsulate the enzymes and protect them from the dangers of degradation. The technology can be used in numerous applications, one of them being a new method for slow-release medications. These slow release medicines allow for the introduction of necessary chemicals over a period of time, avoiding any negative side effects from releasing all the medication at once.

Substantial improvements in cancer detection and treatment have been made over the years, and Hamilton students are concentrating in that research area as well.  Traditional cancer treatments, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy, are relatively invasive and attack cancerous and non-cancerous cells alike.  These techniques may diminish or eliminate the cancer, but not without potentially detrimental side effects that leave the body distressed and fatigued.  New therapies are being developed to specifically target cancerous cells in order to have safer and more efficient treatments.  

William Lands, a nutritional biochemist who is among the world's foremost authorities on essential fatty acids, will give a lecture titled “Put Basic Science into Your Personal Health,” on Monday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m., in the Kennedy Auditorium, Taylor Science Center. Lands will discuss nutrition, specifically omega three and six fatty acids. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Kimberly Bogardus ’14, Leah Cairns ’13, Lennox Chitsike ’13 and Akritee Shrestha ’13 presented posters at the 57th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting that took place Feb. 2-6 in Philadelphia. They presented results obtained in the research laboratory of Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten. The presentations were part of sessions on “Membrane Active Peptides and Toxins.”

Kimberly Bogardus ’14, Leah Cairns ’13, Lennox Chitsike ’13 and Akritee Shrestha ’13 presented posters at the 57th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting that took place Feb. 2-6 in Philadelphia. They presented results obtained in the research laboratory of Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten. The presentations were part of sessions on “Membrane Active Peptides and Toxins.”

Associate Professor of Biology Wei-Jen Chang and Ke Xu ’11 were among authors of an article published in the journal Gene. The article, “Copy number variations of 11 macronuclear chromosomes and their gene expression in Oxytricha trifallax,” appeared in Gene, Volume 505, Issue 1, 15 August 2012, Pages 75-80.  Xu majored in biochemistry and mathematics at Hamilton and is now a research technician at the Molecular Cytology Core Facility in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Five Hamilton students who spent the summer working in science-related internships had the opportunity to share information on their experiences in the first event in a new Career Center series on Sept. 24.

Daniel Mermelstein ’14 is conducting research this summer on a protein produced by the fetus, alpha-fetoprotein, that might hold the key to a reduction in breast cancer.

On the surface, humans and flies may seem to have very different embryonic development; while it takes nine months for one human baby to develop, hundreds of fly eggs can hatch in the incubation period of only 24 hours. But, in both species, the undifferentiated embryo separates at some point to become different segments and appendages to the body. The molecules that trigger these differentiating genes are called morphogens, and each species has hundreds to thousands of them in its genome. William Stateman ’10 is trying to identify the effects of one specific morphogen on embryos of fruit flies.