Chemistry

This project focuses on how adding various substituents to the already existing phenolmolecule will influence its structure and stability. Phenol is an antiseptic often found in household cleaners and is also used in small amounts as an anesthetic. 11 non-metal substituents are added within the para location to see whether or not the said substituent will affect the molecule. Our ... Read More

Mycetoma is a commonly neglected tropical disease that leads to the development of tumors that may affect underlying bone (CDC, 2020). By carrying on from graduated students’ research from the previous year, we have analyzed a compound, Methyl Ether 6, that they have deemed as potentially fit for the treatment of the disease. Enforcing Lipinski’s rule of 5 in combination ... Read More

STI-571’s role in the medical field is not as significant as other proteins, so we are interested in the logistics of its interaction with amino acids, such as Threonine. We applied the SPARTAN software to model the STI-571 molecule and Thr. We then made atomic substitutions, including changing a few Nitrogen atoms to Carbon atoms. Despite such changes, the distance ... Read More

Antibodies play a critical role in the immune system to recognize and defend the body from antigens. While most antibodies bind to one unique antigen due to the affinity maturation process, some antibodies bind with low affinity to multiple unrelated antigens, which is termed polyreactivity. In serum, there are many different polyreactive antibodies, of which have different affinities. Thus, using ... Read More

Antifungal therapy against eumycetoma, the fungal form of the infectious disease known as Mycetoma, has shown to be less than 27% effective, leading to the need for amputations and frequent surgeries. To find methods to control the predominant causative agent, Madurella mycetomatis, the crowdsourced MycetOS project was created with the intention of taking advantage of online communication between researchers. In ... Read More

The intention of this molecular modeling chemistry project was to minimize harmful emissions from the common explosives trinitrotoluene (TNT) and composition-4 (C4). The explosives were modeled in Spartan, a molecular modeling software that allows for a variety of molecular calculations. Exothermic activation energy calculations were completed to understand initial energies required in the explosions and visualize how those energies fluctuate ... Read More

Global warming is a pressing problem in the world today and it is exacerbated by the release of greenhouse gases, such as methane, into the atmosphere. Zeolites are being examined as a potential solution to the methane problem because they have a unique structure that can trap molecules. In particular, zeolites containing transitional metals show promise in oxidization reactions. Methane ... Read More

Polymers such as polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and nylon are very useful materials; they’re used in everything from packaging to piping to other everyday plastics. Every polymer is made up of many, many monomers stitched together to make a new substance. Their syntheses are very elaborate processes and are made up of multiple steps. The step to focus on is ... Read More

Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia that declines cognitive function, is one of the world’s most prevalent diseases, currently with no cure discovered. Many drug therapies for the treatment of Alzheimer’s are centered around the cholinergic hypothesis, which states that the decrease of acetylcholine (ACh), a crucial neurotransmitter, is the start of the development of Alzheimer’s. To counter this, most ... Read More