Undergraduate Research Presented at Honors Night

Junior and senior chemistry and biochemistry majors presented their research during Honors Night, Thursday, April 24 at the UARK Ballroom, 644 W. Dickson Street. Most of the 40 students are honors students.

1. Maher Abu-Libdeh “Biophysical Characterization of the Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor Interaction(s)” (mentor T.K.S. Kumar)

2. Natalie Anderson “Applications of Fluorescence and Magnetic Resonance Methods to Investigate Lipid/Peptide Interactions” (mentor Roger Koeppe)

3. Tammy Binz “Synthesis, Structural Analysis, and Study of the N-Heterocylic Carbene Character of Di-tert-butylcycloheptatrieneylidene when Used as a Ligand or Combined with a Transition Metal” (mentor Neil Allison)

4. Kyle Blair “Significance of Washing Procedure on Methanogen Growth” (mentors Tim Kral, Biological Sciences and Dan Davis)

5. Drew Bockenfeld “Development of a Protocol to Quantitatively Measure Methionine Oxidation Caused by Tobacco Smoke in Small Proteins Cleared through Human Urine” (mentor Wes Stites)

6. Laura Bradney “Investigation of Antimicrobial and Lipid Perturbing Properties of Acylated Lactoferrin Peptides” (mentor Denise Greathouse)

7. Carter Calef “The Synthesis of Terminal Allenes with Variable Substituents” (mentor Neil Allison)

8. Randy Carney “Atom Economy Synthesis of High Quality Oxide Nanocrystals” (mentor Xiaogang Peng)

9. Christopher Carter “Development of Oxygen Sensors for In-vivo Sensing” (mentor David Paul)

10. Zach Donnell “Determining the Effects of a Mutated Nup211 on the Heterochromatin Pathway in Schizosaccharomyces Pombe” (mentor Denise Greathouse)

11. Jacqueline Ryan Duncan “Expression and Purification of Cdc42 Mutants for Biophysical Studies to Understand Altered Functions Relative to Wild Type Cdc42Hs” (mentor Paul Adams)

12. Lauren Edwards “An Innovative Method for the Purification of Recombinant Proteins” (mentor Paul Adams)

13. Rachel Ellis “Effect of Linker on Transmembrane Peptide-Anchored Lactoferricins in Neutral and Anionic Lipids” (mentor Denise Greathouse)

14. Eric Flagg “Expression of Transmembrane and Cytoplasmic Domains of Anthrax Toxin Receptor” (mentor Roger Koeppe)

15. Thomas Fleri “Life in Outer Space? The Possibility of Life on Enceladus” (mentors Tim Kral, Biological Sciences and Roger Koeppe)

16. Whitney Gammill “A Comparative Study of the Use of High-Linoleic Acid Vegetable Oils in Producing Conjugated Linoleic Acid” (mentors Andy Proctor Food Science and Roger Koeppe)

17. Christopher Hall “Electron Transfer Reactions of Cytochrome C” (mentor Frank Millett)

18. Evan Harsh “Electron Transfer from Cytochrome c to Cytochrome Oxidase” (mentor Frank Millett)

19. Khalil Ibrahim “Understanding the Mechanism of the Anti-angiogenic Activity of Suramin” (mentor T.K.S. Kumar)

20. Megan Mainord “Regulation of the High-Affinity Iron Uptake System of Candida Albicans” (mentors David McNabb, Biological Sciences and Dan Davis)

21. Zachary Manning “RDC Modeling of FGF-1” (mentor T.K.S. Kumar)

22. Nicole McClellan “Molecular Interactions of Lactoferricin Peptides” (mentor Denise Greathouse)

23. Cristina Melean “Improvement of Microdialysis Techniques for Cytokine Research” (mentor Julie Stenken)

24. Takanori Miyairi “Expression and Purification of TATA Binding Protein (TBP)” (mentor Joshua Sakon)

25. Kristin Nagle “Study of thrombomodulin Gene Homology” (mentor Wes Stites)

26. Caroline Nardi “Understanding the Molecular Mechanism Underlying the Secretion of Fibroblast Growth Factors” (T.K.S. Kumar)27. Olena Pickett “A Study of Synthesis and Chemistry of Metallaanthracenes” (mentor Neil Allison)

28. Latisha Puckett “Determining Protein Folding Energies with H/D Exchange Mass Spectrometry” (mentor Wes Stites)

29. Miles Ritter “The Immune Response: Nitric Oxide and Cytokine Expression” (mentor Julie Stenken)

30. John Shellenberger “Detection of Cytochrome C and Dopamine on a TiO2 Nanosphere Modified Electrode” (mentor Ryan Tian)

31. Chris Sichmeller “A Study of CdSe-Amine Ligand Kinetics at Room Temperature” (mentor Xiaogang Peng)

32. Kent Smith “Novel Methods for Methionine Alkylation” (mentor Wes Stites)

33. Maria Super “A Study of an Alternate a-Elimination Reaction to Form Carbenes” (mentor Neil Allison)

34. Whitney Tharp “Stability of Collagen Binding Domain Quantum Dot Conjugate” (mentor Joshua Sakon)

35. Rachel Thomas “Influence of Proline upon the Folding of a Designed Transmembrane Helical Peptide” (mentor Roger Koeppe)

36. Nathan Tobey “Characterizing Changes in the Denatured State Ensemble of Staphylococcal Nuclease” (mentor Wes Stites)

37. Trinh Tran “Overexpression and Biophysical Characteristics of D3 Domain of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor” (mentor T.K.S. Kumar)

38. Blake Williams “Examinations into the Utility of the Acyclic Allylic Diazene Rearrangement” (mentor Matt McIntosh)

39. Caitlin Williams “Strategies in Developing Immunoassay Microarrays: Layer-wise Surface Modification, Stability, Signal, and Characterization” (mentor Ingrid Fritsch)

40. Adam Zimmerman “Crystal Structure Analysis of FGFR1 D2 Domain with Sucrose Octasulfate” (mentor Joshua Sakon)