This summer, Biochemistry senior, Travis Ashley is working in the environmental center at Anne Arundel Community College. Here’s his description of what he’s doing: “Mostly what we do is microbial monitoring in the bay around the Annapolis area, which involves a lot of filtering of bay water, plating on selective media, and counting bacterial colonies. One of my tasks this summer is to help develop an enzymatic method to determine phosphate concentration in samples. In fact, in the picture I have included, I’m in the process of running that reaction. It’s mostly lab work, which is great, but some weeks I get to go out on a boat around downtown Annapolis and Eastport to collect water samples which is pretty fun.” Travis is having a great summer and loves applying his biochemistry background to developing the enzymatic assays to monitor the bay.
Chemistry and Biochemistry News
This summer, chemistry senior, Joe Kittelberger, is completing his Capstone internship at Smiths Detection. This company, located in Edgewood, MD, works on the application, management and manufacture of detection and screening technology. Currently, Joe is getting experience with analyzing the plasma gram data from an ion mobility spectrometer, an instrument that is used by TSA to detect trace amounts of explosives and narcotics at airports. Once he’s familiar with the instrument, Joe’s project this summer is to look at false alarms that occur with the IONSCAN 600 in Narcotics Mode. Joe is really enjoying his internship and is excited about all he is learning!
Each fall, our ACS Club performs the annual Chemistry Magic Show to the delight of a packed audience of students and faculty. One of the favorite experiments is Elephant’s Toothpaste. This chemistry experiment involves the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide resulting in a colorful display of foam. Food coloring creates fun colors and rainbows. In Virginia, at the end of June, Camille Shrier, a 24 year old biochemist who is pursuing her Doctorate of Pharmacy Degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, performed this same experiment as her talent portion of the Miss Virginia competition and won! She will now proceed to the Miss America competition.
For his Capstone internship this summer, senior Chemistry major, Miguel Hernandez, is working at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the Adult Inpatient Pharmacy Division. During this internship, he will be able to shadow different pharmacists throughout the hospital, as well as work on a summer-long project. With his project, Miguel will examine Adult Inpatient Pharmacy’s medication histories to characterize the performance of the program, as well as to identify any areas for improvement. Miguel is really enjoying his internship. He has wanted to pursue a career in pharmacy since high school. Miguel is looking to get some inpatient pharmacy experience and also to learn if he wants to combine his love of pharmacy with research, something he has enjoyed doing in the department over the past year.
Biochemistry rising sophomore, Alexia Smith, is serving as an OWL (Orientation and Welcome Leader) this summer. In this position, Alexia will give tours of SU over the summer and be an assistant at orientation. Alexia will share her excitement of being at SU with prospective and incoming students this summer!