Friday, February 28, 2014

Senior Seminars Begin


A new group of seniors are on target to graduate this spring and have been working hard on their presentations and reports for the CHEM C301 Senior Seminar capstone course.  Biochemistry major Michael Partridge gave the first presentation Thursday and showered his classmates and faculty with background information and experimental data from recent literature regarding intracelluar signalling proteins that mediate the transformation between GTP and GDP. At the end of his talk, Professor Anderson dubbed him "the happiest student on campus" for having finished this portion of the coursework.

Earlier this semester, alumni Denisse Hernandez (Chemistry, 2012) and Calvin Streeter (Biochemistry, 2011) returned to campus to give advice and encouragement to the seminar students.  "Don't procrastinate", "seek help from your coach", and "rehearse your talk" are timeless advice that can't be overemphasized. Each Thursday showcases a different student with a different topic.  At the conclusion of the course, the faculty will choose the winner of the annual Joseph H. Ross Seminar Award.

This year students are presenting the following topics:

     Mutant K-Ras Protein in Human Cancer
     T-Cell Receptor Specificity in Cancer Vaccines
     Effects of Crosslinking and Remelting Polyethylene
     Copper Amine Oxidases
     Bisphosphonate Treatment in Paget’s Disease of the Bone
     Macrocyclic Scavengers for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
     Proton-Coupled Electron Transport in Ribonucleotide Reductase
     Mutant Myocillin in Relation to Glaucoma