Niagara Undergraduate Students Present Research at American Chemical Society’s Fall Meeting

Ten Niagara University students presented their undergraduate research alongside graduate students, post-doctoral and professional chemists at the American Chemical Society's fall 2024 meeting in Denver, Colo., Aug. 18-22. In addition to their poster presentations, the students were able to network with scientists from around the world who have similar research interests, talk to schools at the graduate school fair, participate in professional development seminars, and expand their scientific knowledge by attending presentations and talking to vendors at the expo.

Senior chemistry education major Raegan Lawton and junior biochemistry major Zachary Holmes presented on "Single crystal X-ray diffraction studies of chalcogen-containing chromophores," research they performed with Dr. Lauren Rosch, assistant professor of chemistry.

Junior biochemistry major Elise Spence presented on the "Development of a biaryl oxidative coupling-based route to the anti-tumor natural products TMC-95," and junior chemistry major Adrian Martinez presented "Studies toward the synthesis of ent-artemisinin, a potential anti-malarial compound," work they did under Dr. Luis Sanchez, associate professor of chemistry.

Junior biology major Patrick Hennegan presented on "Cloning of a yeast multicopper oxidase domain for purification and characterization," and senior biology major Corrine Kleiner presented on the "Development and characterization of stimuli-sensitive liposomes." Both students work under Dr. Christopher Stoj, associate professor of chemistry.

Four students working under Dr. Mary McCourt, professor of chemistry, presented their work, which they performed in Niagara University's Biomedical Research Institute on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Senior biochemistry majors Kathryn Bednarz and Michael Trapasso presented "Targeting Triple Negative Breast cancer (TNBC) with intracellular delivery of Olaparib using Cholestosome^TM technology," and senior chemistry majors Morgan Hildreth and Sarah Waldmiller presented on the "Development of a general intracellular anti-viral therapeutic using Cholestosome^TM technology."

Three faculty and staff members accompanied the students: Dr. Rosch, Daniel Potoczak, '16, instrument support technician; and Dr. Lawrence Mielnicki, director of teaching and research laboratories.