Updated: May 5, 2018
Shanice is currently a student at Virgina State University working towards a degree in chemistry. She worked with Professor George Stan and his graduate student Abdolreza Javidialesaadi to develop computational models of biological nanomachines that mediate protein degradation.
Shanice investigated mechanisms of bacterial caseinolytic protease (Clp) which help maintain cell viability through removal of defective of abnormal proteins. These ring-shaped nanomachines undergo cyclical ATP-driven conformational changes to unfold and translocate substrate proteins (SPs) through their narrow central pore. We performed Langevin dynamics simulations of an implicit solvent model of ClpY and SPs consisting of tandem constructs with 1, 2, or 4 titin I27 domains. We contrasted the SP behavior in a setup that mimics laser optical tweezer experiments, in which the N-terminal is restrained along the direction of the ClpY pore axis, and in an in-vivo like setup, in which the N-terminal is unrestrained. Our results indicate that ClpY utilize direction-dependent pulling mechanisms to remodel their substrates.She worked with Professor George Stan developing computational modeling of biological nanomachines
Here is a video of Shanice explaining her experience at the REU program
Updated: May 5, 2018
Brittney is a native Ohioan, who is currently wrapping up her studies at Univeristy of Ohio. She will be attending graduate school in chemistry at Nortwestern next fall.
She worked with Balu Addepalli on detection of N4-acetylcytidine modification in saccharomyces cerevisiae mRNA. She is an excellent communicator and her presentation at the end of the REU program gave her the John Alexander Poster award. She presented her work also elegantly at the ACS meeting in New Orleans spring of 2017.
Listen to Brittaney at the REU poster section in August 2017, just click on the video below
Updated: Jun 6, 2018
Emanuel is styding chemical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).
Although, Emanuel will graduate as an engineer degree in the near future, he has excellent skills when it comes to inorganic synthesis, which came in handy when he worked with Huiguang Dai in Professor Hairong Guan laboratory this summer.
His research was focues on ammonia-borane as a hydrogen source for the reduction of amines under mind conditions. He successfully showed that ammonia-borane could potentially serve as an alternative reagent for the reduction of amides to their respective amines. Here is a picture of him presenting his resarch at the ACS meeting in New Orleans spring of 2018. We look forward to read more about his research project when it gets published.
Take a look at this video where Emanuel describes his experience working on a project in the REU program at UC.