Chemistry and Biochemistry News

The Department of Chemistry is very excited to start the 2014-2015 year! The start of a new academic year always brings wonderful energy and excitement to campus. It also gives us a fresh start with new programs, ideas, and plans.

More details will follow on this blog about our students, the internships and research that our students are engaged in, activities organized by our clubs, exciting classes and laboratory experiments, and the new faculty who have joined us this year.

WELCOME to our new students and WELCOME BACK to our returning students. We hope you’re as excited about the upcoming semester as we are!

Janice Laforteza, a biochemistry senior, completed her Capstone internship at The Living Legacy Foundation (LLF) this summer. LLF is a non-profit health service organization that facilitates the donation and recovery of human organs and tissues for transplantation and research.

Janice was a Quality Systems Intern. In this role, she ensured organizational compliance with various state, federal and industry regulatory agencies, filed documents for individual donor cases, shadowed staff members to learn more about the culture of LLF, and watched how skin processing is done.

In her own words, “Although this position is in an environment surrounded by the death of people, it is mostly filled with everyday real-life stories of heroes that are willing to give the gift of life! It is honestly an experience I am most grateful for and has opened my eyes to new and amazing views.”

Biochemistry senior, Joshua Johnson, spent this summer interning at Giant Pharmacy as part of his Capstone course. “I have been doing the job of a pharmacy technician, such as taking prescription drop offs, filling prescriptions, making phone calls to patients etc. Also, I learned how to operate the robot Giant uses to count pills.” Joshua has enjoyed this amazing internship opportunity and is excited about a career in pharmacy.

Students and faculty who are participating in our Summer Scholars Research Program (S3RP) recently attended an Orioles game to cheer on the O’s. A great time was had by all!

Biochemistry senior, Mike Skaro, is completing his Capstone research with Dr. Christopher Plowe at the University of Maryland School of Medicine studying malaria drug resistance. The ultimate goal of the research is to develop vaccines to prevent this deadly disease. Mike reports that he has learned an incredible amount this summer and loves his research project. He plans to use the research skills he has learned this summer when he attends graduate school next year.