Le Moyne Chemists Present at American Chemical Society National Conference

Research or outreach by four members of the Le Moyne chemistry faculty, three current students, and two recent alumni were presented this week at the American Chemical Society's spring national meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Chemistry major Janelle Burke '19 presented a poster "N,N,N-pincer ligand system for potential alkali and alkaline-earth metal complexes" in the main group chemistry poster session of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry. That work was done in collaboration with Chair of the Department of Chemistry Anna O'Brien, alumnus Rosario Giufré '18, alumna Miriam Gillett-Kunnath '98 (now at Syracuse University), and Syracuse University Dean of Arts and Sciences Karin Ruhlandt. Dr. O'Brien presented a poster in the same session, "Toward Alkali and Alkaline-Earth metal complexes of 2,5-bis(3,5-dimethylpyrazolylmethyl)pyrrole," representing research she conducted with Dr. Gillett-Kunnath and Dr. Ruhlandt and with Le Moyne alumnus Devon Haugh '18.

Earlier in the week, Assistant Professor of Chemistry Emily Harcourt, Ph.D., presented a poster titled "Effect of dimerization on the activity of two antimicrobial peptides" in the current topics poster session of the Division of Biological Chemistry. That work was done in collaboration with biology major Anna Austin '19and  biology and chemistry major Arthur Germakovski '21. In the same session, Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Caitlin Miller, Ph.D., presented a poster titled "Acyclic identification of aptamers (AIA): Rapid identification of DNA and 2’-OMe RNA aptamers for human alpha-thrombin." That work was done at AptaMatrix Inc., and Syracuse University in collaboration with Mark McPike and Philip Borer.

And still earlier in the week, Professor of Chemistry Carmen Giunta, Ph.D., gave a talk "International places of the periodic table" in the general papers session of the Division of the History of Chemistry and a talk on "Geography of the periodic table" at the Teachers' Program in the Division of Chemical Education. Both presentations were in collaboration with James Marshall, Ph.D., of the University of North Texas; the two presentations described the same project from a scholarly and a pedagogical perspective respectively.