Project SEED & The Summer Research Fellowship Blog

Good Job, Project SEED 2011

2011-09-03T08:09:00.007-04:00

I just want to congratulate Marissa and Liz for their awesome work in Denver. Both did an exceptional job at the Sci-Mix poster session and earned those three days off from school. They represented and advocated for our program very well, helping to make sure that Project SEED is available to needy students for years to come.

Also, congratulations to all of Duquesne's 2011 Project Seedlings. We had an productive, rigorous, and hopefully rewarding summer. Good luck in if you're off to college, and work hard if you're back in high school.

Thanks to Duquesne's University, the Department of Chem and Biochem, and all of the exceptional staff, grad students, and professors. Your contributions to the education of these children will be well remembered as they age and proceed through their careers. They will cite you in future meetings and conversations as individuals and mentors who changed their perspective. That's a cool thing and a profound way to maintain the continuity of our culture.

On a personal note, thank your for your continued support of my research and the opportunity to continue to serve the Project SEED students.

A Few Pictures From Denver...

2011-09-01T23:09:00.011-04:00

One of the first days in Denver we spent some time exploring the city. This is Liz and I, with the city behind us, right before we went to Starbucks for a drink. The dry air made me really thirsty.
Mountains, mountains, mountains and still....more mountains. The part of Denver that we stayed in felt relatively flat, but once we drove out a little bit it was obvious we were in the Rockys.

Another cool part of the trip was the tour of the Cave of the Winds. It felt like a very tourist-y spot to visit, but it was still fun. The tour guide led us through cavers, explaining how they came to be, and telling ghost stories. The caves also had very good acoustics (one of the owners wanted to put an orchestra inside).

Of course, when you're in Denver you have to visit the mountains. We spent some time climbing rocks and enjoying the views from atop.

The aquarium in Denver was huge! It had so many different fish and....it also had a tiger! But, really there were so many! Not all were as colorful as this tank, but it was still interesting. The rooms were really decorated and realistic; one room simulated a flashflood with raging waters and a ceiling that simulated a storm. At the end they had a shallow stingray tank were you could softly graze your hands over the fish.

The Hard Rock Cafe was definitely one of the best places we ate in Denver. We tried a lot of different foods, but the burgers here were my favorite.

There was a lot of art in Denver. Some of which included many different pianos all painted with different designs, set up periodically all down the main street. I can't play, but I wish I could.

Grand Finale

2011-09-01T22:20:00.005-04:00

Well, I guess this is it. No more Project SEED. In a way, I'm happy. I've done some research that amazes my friends, gone on field trips to places I certainly wouldn't see otherwise, made new friends and learned so much. Plus I can do something else next summer too! But it's also sad because all of that's gone now, and I'm left with just memories. I'll miss the professors, the students, being amazed and confused as I go through my first week trying to figure out what my project is. Overall, the most rewarding part was the education and the experience. How many high school students can say they already have two summers of undergraduate research on their application essays? Or presented at poster symposiums, both at a college and at a national ACS conference in Denver, Colorado. Nope, not many. But Project SEED wasn't isn't just something to put on a college application. It helped me grow into someone who looks at the world scientifically; questioning, investigating, being skeptical when necessary and accepting nothing short of the facts.

I'm not sure if it's something that can be easily reflected upon now, I think it's easier to look at your teen years once you're done with them, but I know that this has helped me mature a lot. Being around people that highly educated (more so than regular high school students) exerts a certain peer pressure, the good kind, that helps with that. I feel more involved in science now. I care about new discoveries and research and what's happening in the world around me. I realize it's important because most things will effect me in one way or another. I've just learned so much, and it's hard to express in words exactly what the experience was like. What I can say is, if anyone is considering a career in science, in chemistry specifically, do Project SEED. It's opened up a lot doors and certainly had an influence on my college choices and majors. I can't think of any cons, except that maybe you have to get up early in the summer, but I promise it's worth it.

Thank you to everyone who helped make Project SEED possible, both across the nation and at Duquesne. I'm not sure how much you hear gratitude from the SEED students, but we all really are quite grateful. Thanks again and please continue your efforts.

Goodbye Project SEED

2011-09-01T21:07:00.010-04:00

Project SEED has taught me so much about myself, and what I am most grateful for is the confidence it has given me. I do not attend a very challenging school so Project SEED showed me that when I am challenged I can step up and succeed. I will never forget my first week of Project SEED when I received articles written by Professors and scientist for other professionals in the field. The reading was beyond my comprehension. I read page after page unable to understand a word of it. Then when I finally finished reading the article I would sit stunned, because I was just as well off as before I read the article. I understood absolutely nothing. It was like reading another language and honestly it was another language. It was scientific language where the reader was expected to know the jargon. Reading one paper took me, well a very long time. Last year I became a better reader, and a somewhat better writer. I also became a more independent person. In high school I always had someone pushing me to do my best, but in Project SEED I didn’t have someone pushing me to do better. I focused on completing my work when it needed to be done and working when I knew I should be and asking questions when I really needed to. Being a high school student in an academic lab I realized that I had to learn very quickly and the only way I could do that was by asking questions. In high school if you don’t understand something you’re usually not the only one that is clueless so you didn’t have to ask all the questions, other students would. I didn’t have that. Project SEED puts you in the situation where you might be clueless, but you have people that can help you. You have to know what you don’t know and ask those questions until you understand the subject you’re trying to learn inside and out, because when you present your data it is going to be to people that don’t understand a word of it, so you have to explain it for them in a way that they can easily understand what you are saying. This is something I learned from my advisor Mr. Lucas who I went to for many reasons, one of them being my inability to understand what i don’t understand. When I did my work I could easily explain why I did each step and how, but I didn’t understand why I used the things I used or how they are better compared to other things and I realized that I still didn’t understand so much. Mr. Lucas showed me that I didn’t understand...anything. So I had to ask a plethora of questions. Now I understand my research inside and out.

Project SEED has also given me an idea of what I want in a college. Spending two summers at Duquesne has allowed for me to experience a medium size college. It has given me a chance to see if I would want to go to a college the same size as Duquesne or if I preferred a smaller or bigger college. Another way Project SEED helped me pick where I want to attend in the future,was the visit we took to Washington and Jefferson. Duquesne is a similar size to Duquesne, but they are very different and Washington and Jefferson is a college that I am considering going to. The opportunities there are very good, and although it is not a big college it still has many things to offer.

Doing Project SEED has also given me the opportunity to decide if I want to choose a career in science. I had opportunities to experience what it is like to work in academia as a scientist and had the chance to see science in industry. Having the chance to talk with people that have done both academia and industry and get advice from them about why they chose their careers was something I am very grateful for.

So overall, Project SEED has really been life changing. Of course there were times when it was really stressful and I felt discouraged, but once I overcame those moments I felt like a stronger person. I really feel like I can take on the world. Last but definitely not least I am so happy I had the chance to meet people from other schools who have similar interests as me, and become such great friends with them. I even had a chance to meet and become friends with people from my school that I did not know very well. The friends that I have made from this experience have become more like an extended family. I still talk to and hang out with students from last years Project SEED, and I feel like I will this year as well. Project SEED is awesome and a great summer experience. Actually, my little brother is very interested in science as well, and I am encouraging him to apply for Project SEED. It really does change who you are.

Goodbye Project SEED and thank you for all you have done for me! You will be missed!

PIttsburgh Section Wins the ChemLuminary Award for Best Project SEED Program

2011-08-31T11:44:00.007-04:00

Duquesne University and The Pittsburgh Section of the ACS has been recognized for two of the last three years as the best Project SEED program in the country!

Tell me that ain't cool...?

The Final Symposium

2011-08-31T10:50:00.008-04:00

The Colorado Convention Center was huge! I was expecting something more like the one we have back in Pittsburgh, but this one is so much bigger. It had a lot of art inside too.

They had a lot of hanging art, including the metal waves in the picture above, and some discs that I thought looked like spaceships. Other than that there were a lot of plants (I think they were all real) and different painting and pictures everywhere. It was all really beautiful.

The big blue bear looking into the convention center was a sculpture done by a local artist, Lawernce Argent. It's called "I See What You Mean". It was built back in 2005 to add a sense of fun and playfulness to the atmosphere.

Liz and I got there early to setup our posters. There was a row of boards for the Project SEED kids and I think there were about five of us altogether. I was surprised that some of them were already in college, I didn't know that Project SEED programs ran that long. Other than that they all had really nice posters.

Overall, I think a lot of people visited the Project SEED posters, but I feel like I got somewhere between 20-30 people at mine. Some were fans of Project SEED, being old mentors or high school teachers, but there were others attracted to it because of my Coordination Polymer topic.

By the end of the day, I felt really proud of myself. So many people had come and complimented me on my work and on doing Project SEED. A lot of professors and graduate students asked about my future plans for college and majors, a good number of them urging me to take on chemistry, and still more gave me advice on applying and opportunities I should look out for.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my poster! Thanks to everyone who made Project SEED possible.

The Big Night!

2011-08-30T09:44:00.010-04:00

Last night I presented the work that I have been doing for the past two summers at the convention center in Denver, Colorado. I was so nervous about presenting that I stayed up the night before going to Colorado and thought about the presentations. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to present it at such a big convention, and was terrified of what the outcome might be- Would I be able to explain my work properly? What kind of questions will I be asked? How many people are going to come to my poster? What if I don’t have anyone come to my poster?!-Questions like that kept me from sleeping an entire night, but when the big day came I was no longer nervous. I knew I was ready, and as the time grew closer to presenting I became very excited about showing everyone that I could the work that I had done. After setting up my poster I waited to meet the other Project SEED students. I wanted to hear about how they became involved in Project SEED, what the experience has been like for them, and just get to know them. After meeting the other Project SEED students I realized that our experiences were very similar, and found myself relating to them easily. Then the time came to put on my heels and try to grab as many people as I could, which was not very difficult because my posters was in the very front.

After a few moments the doors opened, and tons of people flooded in. I was shocked, and excited, and then I became scared. I wasn’t scared of presenting anymore, I was scared that I was not going to get any traffic. In an instant Marissa had somebody at her poster, and they just kept coming, I guess coordination polymers are very exciting right now. At that moment I thought back on when Dr. Wheeler had shared with us that there was a competition for the most unique and interesting title in the talks he had went to. One of the titles was ‘Pop and Lock’...I really wished that I had an eye catching title like that at my poster, but I did not have to wait very long, suddenly I had many people coming to my poster. As the night went on and I presented to more and more people I became more and more confident. I became so confident after George Richter-ADDO, the professor and Chair of the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma asked me if I would like to work for him. He told me about the research that he had worked on and gave me his card so I can get in touch with him later. He also told me that he had worked with Dr. Wheeler before Dr. Wheeler came to Duquesne, and I was just so happy that he enjoyed my presentation and that I was offered a chance to work for him. My confidence went through the roof after that. I wished I would have kept count of all the people that came to my poster, but to be honest there were just too many. If I had to guess I would say I presented to at least twenty people. After the convention ended I both exhausted and restless(not to mention I could barely walk). I would love to do another convention, it was just so exciting, and I shocked so many people when they found out that I was a high school student. I am so proud of myself, and so grateful for this experience, I really can not wait to show my family. I just want to bring my poster everywhere and present it to everyone!

First Day in Denver!

2011-08-28T19:02:00.000-04:00

First day in Denver woo! From up in the sky everything looked really flat. From down in the city...it's still quite flat. It seems really calm here. Theres not a lot of people or noise and the sidewalks and streets kind of blend together. I found out, at the first place we ate at, that they call their pizzas pies here. Weird. What do they call pies then? After that we stopped by the convention center and got a taste of what it'll be like tomorrow. Its huuuuge and theres sooo many posters. I'm kinda nervous for tomorrow....But anyway, then we walked around Denver some more and stopped by the mall. Its mostly outside, which makes me wonder what shopping is like in the winter...Now we're getting ready to go to dinner, bye!

Duquesne Project SEED feature on Imagine Pittsburgh

2011-08-25T17:51:00.001-04:00

Read the article here.

Last Blog Challenge :(

2011-08-12T13:36:00.003-04:00

Interview with Kim

How did you arrive at Duquesne University?

Undergraduate research and wanted to be close to family.

Did you always want to be a chemist?

No, got offered a position in lab and always wanted to be a teacher.

What do you like most about your job?

I always have something new to do everyday.

What don't you like?

It's hard, so basically the pressure and the stress.

Do you have any regrets or missteps?

No, I'm pretty satisfied with everything.

Where is it that your actually from?

Beaver Dell, PA.. where the sinking school was.

Did you ever study abroad?

I didn't, I came from a poor family so really couldn't afford but someone else in my lab does and I just look at her pictures and picture me being there.

Would you do anything different?

Travel more so I can have spring breaks in other countries and also have a summer because I don't have that now.

How many years of school do you have left?

Starting my 3rd year now, and have 3 more to go.

Did you enjoy your summer with Mr. Lucas being in your lab?

Of course!!

Will you be back here next year?

Oh yes, I'm stuck here now.

Quote from Kim "THINGS WORK OUT" no matter what the situation may be :)

Thanks Kim for your time, hope to see you again next year!

Last words from me, project seed has been an awesome experience so happy I did it and I hope to be back next year! GOODBYE :)

This is it.

2011-08-12T13:28:00.004-04:00

I cant believe it the final blog post. When I began Project SEED just eight short weeks ago I almost though I would never make it to this point.

I would like to begin by saying that this program was great and has helped me in many ways. First of all it helped me solidify my interest in the sciences. This is something that will be extremely beneficial to me in the future. It has also given me the opportunity to see what its like in the different sectors of chemistry. By that I mean I had the opportunity to see both the academic and the corporate side of chemistry, a privilege that very few get. I now have an understanding of corporate chemistry which could be very beneficial. SEED has also helped make my future choice making a little bit easier with this experience I can now say what interests me a little bit easier.

Its almost impossible to express how much I have learned this summer in a single paragraph. Aside from the things mentioned above I have earned many things. Probably one of the most important things that I have learned this summer is a sense of patience. It was sometimes tough to understand some of the technical papers and things like that but one of the things that I learned to do was be patient until I do. I learned some new ins and outs of Microsoft word and powerpoint that I didn't know before, as well as the proper way to keep your audience interested in what your saying. I could go on, but the point of the previous is to express the immense amount of knowledge that I now posses.

And finally the people that I have met during the summer have been amazing. From my fellow SEED students to my grad students Gavin and Kristen who I would like to thank very much. Also I would like to thank my professor Dr. Gawalt who was also very helpful me me. I would also like to thank everyone else who helped me along the way.

Well I guess thats it this has been a great experience that I will remember for a long time to come.

The final Blog Challenge

2011-08-12T11:41:00.003-04:00

Above is an interview that I conducted with Deja's grad students Bonnie and Tim. They had some pretty good things to say and it was interesting to hear part of their story. They ended the interview with some great advice

Chemistry Live! With Graduate Students, Gavin and Kristen!

2011-08-12T11:29:00.003-04:00

This week we were assigned to interview different graduate students from other labs and ask them about their research here at Duquesne, why they chose to study chemistry, any regrets and if they had any advice for us high schoolers. We decided to interview Gavin and Kristen from Dr. Gawalt's lab. Both of them were very enthusiastic about helping us and all of their advice was very helpful and much appreciated. Thanks guys!

Last Day of Project SEED Forever!

2011-08-12T10:30:00.006-04:00

Wow I can't believe that this is my last day of Project SEED. I still remember my first day two years ago when I was absolutely terrified of this place. Everything was overwhelming and I felt like there was no way I was going to be able to do any of this. Even this year, with my new project and graduate student I was a little overwhelmed.

I've learned a lot though, from my two summers with Project SEED. It really opened my eyes to what working in an academic lab is like and how different the atmosphere is between high school and college; between secondary school and the professional world.

Being from a small high school where most people didn't go outside of our small town, it was an immensely new experience to work with people from India, the Philippines and other places. College is really a place that thrives from it's diversity.

The lab that I worked in is an Inorganic, Organometallic and Polymer Chemistry lab. So a lot of research goes on here. My first year there were a lot of people working in the lab and my project was optimizing the GC and IR for simple reaction mixture analysis of ATRA. A lot of it involved wondering why our machines weren't working...But in the end I got my data.

This year I had a new graduate student, Raj, and a new project, the synthesis of copper(I) cyanide coordination polymers. It was really interesting since this research is recently becoming more popular because of the applications for metal organic frameworks (MOF's). MOF's are porous materials that can kind of act like a net to catch different molecules.

At first we made some known coordination polymers, but then we started synthesizing new ones. Sometimes it was hard to get good crystals for X-ray crystallography, because our coordination polymers would crash out and we would get powder instead. It was exciting when we did get nice crystals though! Those were good days.

Some of my favorite parts of SEED were the field trips. Of course, just working here at first was it's own experience, but the field trips to different companies and research facilities provided even more exposure into the post-high-school world of science. Visiting W&J was really beneficial because, before, I had heard that it was a good school, but I always shrugged it off and never thought it was somewhere I would go. After visiting there's no question about applying for W&J, it's just too nice of a school to not apply and when I say nice I mean in terms of academics, faculty, opportunities, food(!), and more.

Overall, I've learned a lot from Project SEED. It's hard to express in words how much this has has changed me and my future decisions. It's best described as your eyes being opened to something that was there all along, you just had to know where to look and how to find it.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who made this possible; my graduate students, Matt Taylor and Carol Ricardo (first year) and Raj Kaur (second year), my professor (Dr. Tomislav Pintauer, an awesome professor), my advisor Josh Lucas, Dr. Aitken, all of the Project SEED students (2010, 2011 and the alumni who returned), the American Chemical Society Project SEED Office, Sto-Rox High School's faculty and staff, Gavin and Kristen from Dr. Gawalt's lab and everyone else at Duquesne University for making this such a wonderful experience.

Thank you!

Big Blog Challenge

2011-08-12T03:02:00.003-04:00

For my interview I chose to do Raj, a grad student from Dr. Pintauer's lab. She's currently studying abroad and had a lot of interesting things to say.

Q: How did you get interested in science?

A: I always wanted to be a part of something sciencey. And the subject where I am now is the ost interesting to me.

Q: Is it everything you expected it to be?

A: Yes, it is very fulfilling.

Q: What is your favorite form of science?

A: Biochemistry or science, definitely. They are both limitless in potential.

Q: What was your biggest fear going into college?

A: I actually had none, I was completely optimistic.

Q: If you have 3 oranges and 2 apples in one hand, and 3 apples in another, what do you have?

A: Not enough oranges! I want more!! Also, really big hands.

Q: How is the study abroad program?

A: It is such a great experience. The culture and people here are so different it's nice to know there is a different world.

Q: If you could change one thing about your academic career what would it be?

A: I think I'd play more sports. FIeld hockey was one fo my favorites.

Q: How do you feel about your project?

A: I feel fantastic, mainly because we are studying coordination polymers at room temperature, which is definitely more green than at 180 degrees celsius.

Q: What was your hardest class in college?

A: Quantum Mechanics for sure.

Q: Are you looking forward to getting your phd?

A: Yes, but at the same time I'll miss it. I feel as though I'm doing the same kind of work now that I will be doing when I get a job, but I definitely will miss the college life. I guess it'll be bittersweet.

Thanks a lot for your time Raj, you were really fun to interview!

Goodbye Project SEED!

2011-08-12T01:00:00.004-04:00

Just yesterday it felt like the first day of project SEED and now it is the very last! Time flys! This summer I've made some new friends, made so many memories, learned so many things and met some new people with encouraging words. This program was an experiance of a life time. I learned so much about what college will be somewhat like and how to get my life started on the right track. This is very important to me since i am a junior this year! This is when everything starts to count. From the SATs, ACTs, PSSAs, all that fun stuff that colleges look at. I feel like this program has made me a all around better person and im so excited to take on my junior year and become a successful person. Everything i've learned this summer will stick with me for the rest of my life. I think without this program i would go finish high school and think that college would be a piece of cake and just walk around like i knew everything. From meeting other successful past SEED students i will take there advice such as studying as much as possible and maybe not to travel so far away from home for college and apply it to myself when my time comes for college. I really hope i can be a part of this program next year because i truly love it! I would like to give a special thanks to Josh Lucas for encouraging me to fill out the Project SEED application and Dr. Aitken for welcoming me here at Duquesne. I would like to thank Dr. Wetzel for taking me as her Project SEED student and giving me the knowledge needed for my project. Lastly i would just like to thank the graduate students on the chemistry floor for being so nice and welcoming to myself and all the other project SEED students! Well hope to see you all next year !

So long and thanks for all the fish

2011-08-11T09:07:00.006-04:00

So this is it. This is the end of our program, the annihlation of what has consumed our lives for eight weeks. These weeks were tough, some more than others, and more than one time the question arose in my head if this was worth it. Looking back now, reviewing all my experiences, I can answer that question with a yes.

First off, (when I say this it is in the same league as Oscar the Grouch's voice) what else would I have done with my summer? That's a no brainer though, sit at home, get a dungeon tan, and play video games. Is that neccesarily a bad thing? The lazy teenager in my head says no, but my brain tells me yes. Where else would I have gotten this kind of experience with college level work routines and the college students themselves? I'll give you a hint, the place begins with an n and ends in an e. Give up? The answer is nowhere. Anything I could've possibly did this summer pales in comparison to this project. For once in my life, I really feel as if I've taken the best possible course of action.

I know I'm gushing, but hey it's hard not to. The people here at Duquesne were just fantastic, through and through. My personal mentor, Scott Boesch, has the most patience I've ever seen. Personally, if I had to deal with a know-nothing highschool kid through the long hot summer months, I would've pulled my teeth out with pliers. Luckily for me though he's better than that. he coached me through learning about proteins, equilibrium, use of the Linux operating system, and just about everything else. He isn't the only one who helped though, my professor, Dr.Wheeler, helped me realize how to act in a proper manner. I mean I'm not Conan the Barbian or anything, but I was definitely lacking etiquette. He left it up to me to get my work done on my own, and even set up our group meetings. At first I though he was just being mean, but then I started to look past the actions themselves. What did I learn by him not holding my hand? To take responsibilty for myself, and that when I further my education I'm not always going to have a teacher available. Sometimes, I'm going to need to put my nose to the grindstone and do it myself. Right now I found that concept a little daunting, but hey I still have two years left of highschool, cut me some slack. Last but not least, there's my grad student Linh. When I say nice what do you think of? Kittens? Cookies? Unlimited lives on Pac Man? Well I think of Linh. She was one of the most kind and caring people I've met in my whole life. She supplied me with pictures for my paper and presentations, and her knowledge about cytochrome bc1 itself. Once I learned that my research was going to play a supporting role in hers ( which is a Phd project ) I was very meticulous with my work. Double checking everything as I went,making sure that my numbers were as accurate as possible. These are only some of the many amazing people I met here, and I wouldn't be have been successful in this program without any of those people.

On to my SEED overseer and the project manager. During the school year Mr.Lucas was definitely a different person. He was laid back, joking around, but he always pushed us to do our work. If I remember correctly, he's one of the main reasons I did this program. In the beginning of SEED though, I realized something: Duquesne was no place to mess around. This was a place where people take their learning seriously. I learned that almost immediately and I'm glad I did. It actually surprised me at first, realizing how much I would have to grow up to succeed. Mr. Lucas really helped me at the beginning and most likely set me on a path for success. I had one more influential person in my SEED experience and that was Dr. Aitken. She wasn't around as much as the others, but that was because she was on a sabbatical with RJ Lee group. They are a well renowned research company and I was impressed that she could transfer from an academic environment to an industrial one so well. I should've expected it though, the woman radiates adaptivity. That is why she was so helpful when we spoke, she could see both sides of the coin, and helped me realize that some things just can't be split up black and white.

I can honestly say that this experience was an eye opener. I didn' t think college was going to be easy by any means, but I definitely didn't think my work routine would have to be so disciplined. I'm really grateful that I got to partake in this program, if not for the people I met, then for the oppurtunity to expand my horizon. If all goes well I will do this again next year and have even more fun! Byebye everybody!

Overall Reflection of Project SEED.

2011-08-10T09:10:00.005-04:00

Project SEED has helped me notice that I will definitely need to go to college to pursue my career and also that college won't be that expensive because of scholarships, financial aid, etc. As we went on field trips I seen all the different scientists and how successful they are with their career and I want that to be me one day. Project SEED has affected my decisions and choices a lot and I'm glad I did this program this summer, it was a wonderful experience. It allowed me to see that I can accomplish my dreams as long as I stay on task and do what I have to do. Anything is POSSIBLE!

My first summer as a SEED student I learned about amino acids, proteins, cations and anions and how the amino acid effects the ions. We did different things such as, created saltboxes using the different computer programs like VMD and running them through the supercomputer to find more info on them.

I really liked project seed, it really boost my confidence of becoming what I want to be. Hopefully I can do this program next year again. Meeting and working with the other SEED kids was the best, I hope we can stay in touch. I want to thank all the donors for letting us have a chance to experience this, you're greatly appreciated. I'd like to thank Mary Krawczak, my professor Dr. Madura and Tim for helping me this summer with all my work, you guys were a big help. Mr. Lucas and Dr. Aitken, I can't forget about to guys, you also were a great help and I'd like to thank you too for creating this program and making it possible to do productive and important things over the summer break. Finally, I'd like to thank Duquesne University for letting us be here for the summer to experience a great thing such as this. With nothing else to be said, I'd just like to thank everyone for everything. BYE!!!! :)

Big Blog Challenge

2011-08-03T14:17:00.003-04:00

Interview someone else's professor or a graduate student who you do not work with. Get them to tell you their story. Ask questions like....

How did they arrive at Duquesne University?

Did they always want to be a chemist?

What do they like most about their job?

What are some of their regrets and missteps?

What would they do differently?

Creative questioning is preferred.

Summarize your conversation on the blog. Pictures and video are worth bonus, but there must be written content too. This blog has a high value reward.

The past week

2011-08-03T11:04:00.007-04:00

This blog post is a little overdue and I have a lot to cover so lets begin.

Lets start with last weeks field trip to Bayer Materials Science. With a trip to another corporate chemical firm, comes another very informative look into the world of what is the business of chemistry. However Bayer differed from our last corporate trip in a few ways. What we saw at Bayer was the development of things that can, and will directly impact the lives of each and every one of us. From bowling balls, to particle board, to the material that is used in the dashboards of cars Bayer is working to manufacture products that will better the lives of many. Now a word about the people that we encountered on our trip. We began the day meeting some fellow Seed students who were conducting their research at Bayer, as well as their coordinator. We then moved on to meet some of the college students who were also doing research at the company, they were also very informative. We had a series of different tour guides and presenters along the way who were very knowledgeable and could answer any of the questions that we may have had. Overall the Bayer trip was a good one and I now have an understanding of the important R & D that goes on there.

Next I'll move on to the research symposium, and i must say it was the apex of the entire experience. Having the opportunity to present my summer research to interested patrons was a good experience. Also the speakers in the morning portion of the symposium were good. Once again we got to meet some fellow students who had come from West Virginia University to present their research.

The final thing that I have to talk about is the alumni lunch, which happened yesterday afternoon. We had the opportunity to hear of some of the life experiences, as well as get some advice from former SEED students.

So a lot has happened since my last blog post, and the above summarizes it all

The Return of the Alumni

2011-08-03T10:18:00.019-04:00

Yesterday the Project SEED alumni (that could make it) came back to visit, eat pizza, and share their college student wisdom with us. Tim McFadden, Dawnee Sloan, Chrysten Pfabe, Tristan Stagger, Chris Sidun, Amanda Anderson and Sydney Burkholder and Mary Krawzack all came to visit. I feel like this year's reunion went a lot better than last years.

They had some really good advice about preparation for college and what to do once we got there. Talking to them eased some of my fears. I'm still a little tentative about the schools I want to apply to and how much everything's going to cost...It's all going to cost quite a lot. And while cost is something that needs to be considered when applying, I think it should be considered after I look at what the schools will offer me if I go there and after I see what scholarships I can get. For now I'm just going to focus on getting accepted! I'll start looking at scholarships too. I'm excited! I can't wait to just finish school and go to college, but at the same

Almost finished !

2011-08-03T10:13:00.005-04:00

The research symposium was last Friday and it was a lot of fun. To see my panels in spot number 40 was a sigh of relief. I felt so accomplished and felt like I did so much to make my research the best it could be. I had 6 or 7 visitors visit me to talk about my research. A lot of people to visit for my first year in project seed right? And Im only junior in high school . I was very shocked. I only thought I would get only about 2 or 3 people, but when i saw people approach me I was very excited to talk about my research. I also visited a person from Washington and Jefferson College which we visited about 2 weeks ago. She shared a lot of information anout her research with me. She also told me a little bit about the college because I am thinking about applying there for college in chemistry. But i still have time to decide. Then it was time for me to leave and return to band camp for my performance. I wish I could of visited more people about there research.

Yesterday was the Project SEED alumni lunch. The alumni were very nice and gave a lot of pointers to get me started into a successful college life out of high school. It was really interesting to see people from Sto-Rox and see how far they have gotten out of a low income school. After hearing a former Sto-Rox graduate, Tim McFadden's story I feel like I could be a very successful person and not hold back at all coming from such a poor and small school.

After today there is only about a week left of Project SEED. Boy does time fly! The last thing to do is write my research paper and then I'm all finished! Even though this program was so much fun I just can't wait until it's over. I want to sleep in, waking up early is so much work.

Symposium and the alumni lunch!

2011-08-02T15:05:00.005-04:00

The symposium was actually my favorite part of the whole summer! Knowing that the big rush of trying to get everything done was finally over made me happy. Only about three people came to actually talk to me about my poster and my grandpa recorded it. Maybe I could share it on here with you guys.

We are now down to the last two weeks of Project SEED they're going to be pretty easy hopefully. I'm very happy I did this program this year it was a great experience to work with new things, I loved it! Hopefully, I can come back next year. Last but not least, today we had lunch with the alumni of project seed from previous years. It was very nice to share what we are doing this summer with the others. It was also nice for them to share what they're doing now with their life, sounds like their becoming successful and I know Project SEED helped make that happen.

Apex of our year

2011-08-02T14:47:00.011-04:00

So much has happened since my last blog I don't even feel like doing this.

<-----END TRANSMISSION----->

Yeah I wish. Last Friday was the main event for the year, the big shebang. Our research symposium was a huge success. There was a few keynote speakers to lead off the event, people had to give their dissertations. You could tell that they were good by the fact that I saw no one sleeping. I mean, it was 9:30 and it was a room full of college students. After that came the best part of the day....I mean lunch. This was when we got to socialize with even more SEED students, these ones hailing from WVU. It was good to talk to them and learn about their projects. I was so happy that it pretty much negated my anger from my ice cream prematurely melting. Almost.....I was really looking forward to that.

Anyways, after lunch came the poster session. It was pretty amazing to see the varying kind of research that had been done. It went from analyzing characters in Russian fairytales to molecular dynamic simulations of the norepinephrine and serotonin transporters in a lipid bilayer membrane. Can you guess which one I understood?

Once it was my turn to present my poster my nerves were at an all time high. With my luck I'd get Stephen Hawking asking me to explain my poster. However, once my first visitors came, I found that I was readily prepared and even managed to slip in a smooth wink.

After the session was over, I realized that this might be the last time I get to see my group, so we didn't pass up the oppurtunity for some amazing photo ops.

After the dust settled from the symposium, we had the Project SEED alumni lunch. I was very anxious to meet some of my predesscesors. I thought they were going to be very stuck up and judgemental. I also thought the Steelers were going to win the Superbowl. Turns out I was wrong on both counts! Everyone was extremely friendly, and very eager to share their experiences and wisdom with us. There were even a few fellow Sto-Rox students who were in college. It is nice to be reminded evry now and then that you shouldn't let where you come from hinder you. Tim McFadden is just starting his PH.D program, and Chris Siden is in his third year of Duquesne's pharmacy program. If they could go on to do great things like that, who's to say I can't?

So that's about it, the last few days in a nutshell. SEED is almost over now and it is weird to think that I'll actually be able to sleep in soon. That is until school starts, at least.

These last two weeks....

2011-08-02T11:06:00.004-04:00

There's always a lot to do. There's the pressure to finish everything before the summer is over (and of course for Denver), but everyone's also really excited to be done and have one week off before school starts.
I have to present again on Thursday, but I haven't had time to gather more results since I've been away at band camp. Last week was really crazy I heard though. But my days pretty much consisted of meals and practicing. Then on Friday I came back for the symposium. We sat in on some speakers, some of them we're really interesting. There was one girl who's project was about pandemics. She was trying to see if there was a way to predict the rise of diseases by looking at the thermometer sales, doctor visits and medicine sales. When I was talking to her about it afterwards though she said it was hard to make models to predict future pandemics when the models for the past weren't informative and it was hard to know how accurate the information was.
There was another person who did a project on the the pressure that's put on bovine heart valves when they're pregnant. The valves in the heart realign themselves while the cow is pregnant in order to compensate for all the pressure and blood.

After all the speakers were done we had lunch with our families, grad students and professors. Other Project SEED kids came from West Virginia to present at our symposium too. I didn't get a chance to go to their posters, but I presented to one of the girls and their mentor.
I feel like this year at SEED I did a lot better at the symposium. More people came to my poster and while I explained it to them, I feel like the language was more fluent.
After my hour was over I walked around to look at the other posters. I talked to the girl who did the pandemic project and then to a few posters that were about physics. There was one grad student from Pitt that was trying to finish filling in the Standard Model of Elementary Particles, specifically with Quarks. Physics is something that I've been thinking about majoring in and it seems like a good choice based on what she said. It's a major where women are a minority...so I hope that means I'll have good opportunities in it.

Bayer Field Trip!

2011-07-26T14:24:00.002-04:00

Bayer today was great. I learned and seen a lot. It helped me better understand what engineers do because that's what I want to be. My favorite part from the tour today was seeing the foam rise & lunch. It was great meeting some of the people who work at Bayer. When it's time to get my time to go to college, I want to become an intern there. The interns there seemed like they like it a lot especially because for some of them it was their second year at Bayer. Bayer is a very important and I never knew why.. but I found that out today! That is all for now. BYE :)

Bayer field trip

2011-07-26T14:17:00.003-04:00

Today our group took a tour of the Bayer campus located not far from Duquesne. This was one of the first tastes of industrial chemistry I've ever gotten. RJ Lee group was nice, but I feel like it was more of a small company. That is definitely not the case with Bayer. I first noticed the big feel when we turned onto Bayer road. That's right, they have their own road.
The surprising thing wasn't how big they were, but how friendly the facility was. I'm not just talking about the people, but mostly everything was aesthically pleasing. I find that a very respectable thing about companies, when they care about their employees to tthat extent.
If I haven't stressed just how big Bayer is (which I think I have) prepare for more. Our tour stretched between two buildings, numbered one and eight. That means that there at least eight full sized R&D facilities on the campus, complete with countless machines. At one point we were even at a place where our tour guide had never been. They don't have all of these buildings just for show either. While on our tour we saw the variety of research they took part in, from developing top of the line bowling balls to their explsion proof glass. To say that they specialize in variety is a bit of an understatement.
While there were many enjoyable instances throughout the trip, my favorite was meeting the other two SEED students. They started a little later than us, so they're still acclimating to their environment. From what they could tell us though it is safe to assume our two work places are noticeably different. They have a lot more independence than us, being given a task for the day then left alone to do it. That isn't neccesarily a good or bad thing though, because I'm sure both methods have very fine advantages.
All in all, the Bayer trip was memorable and I won't soon forget it.

SEED Students at Work (And Mr. Lucas)

2011-07-22T08:41:00.012-04:00

Blog Challenge #3

2011-07-21T12:58:00.002-04:00

Post pictures and video of you and your fellow SEED students in action in the lab. Be sure to be wearing all of your personal protective equipment (goggles, lab coats, and gloves).

W&J

2011-07-20T09:01:00.001-04:00

Today was our first college tour in Project SEED. We went to Washington and Jefferson University and I have to say that before going there it wasn’t somewhere I would consider going. My first impression when I stepped on campus was that it had a good feel to it. Michael Leonard, the Associate Professor of Chemistry, greeted us when we got there. He gave us a tour of their new science building. It had really nice facilities and as we walked through a few students who were working talked to us about some of their research. One of the girls was working on a project with identifying the amounts of cocaine on dollar bills with gas chromatography. The building had three floors, with a small coffee shop on the first, and labs, classrooms and offices on the other two.

After that we went to the admissions office where Danielle Rohland spoke to us about all Washington and Jefferson had to offer, and she really did cover everything; from the admission process to financial aid, clubs, sports, academics and programs. One thing I heard over and over again throughout the day was the Magellan Project. The Magellan Project allows students to pursue research opportunities or projects anywhere in the world as long as it’s approved by the University President. They told us that one student went to a village in the Dominican Republic one year and set up clinics, then went back the next year and hired doctors to work in them and this year he’s bringing other students from Washington & Jefferson to work there with him. I think it’s a really good program because it’s only limited by what you can think up.

Then a student named Matt Yevins toured us through the rest of the campus. We saw the rest of the buildings on the campus, and the inside of a dorm room. The other buildings looked nice from the outside, since that’s all we got to see, and the dorm rooms felt cramped, but I think that’s just how it is in college. One thing I really hope they improve upon in the following years is installing air conditioning in the rest of their buildings. It wasn’t too bad today, but I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like the rest of the year. I hope there’s at least heating in the winter.

Finally we ended our tour with lunch. I think Dr. Leonard said that there was only one cafeteria to eat in on campus, although I’m sure there are other places to eat. It was all pretty standard, but the food was good and the view from where we sat by the windows was nice, at least.

Overall, I really wish there were engineering schools that had a campus as beautiful as W&J. I guess a few of them do, but it’s just not the same. I think W&J will be somewhere I apply this fall. They don’t have engineering, but they have a 3:2 program where I would spend three years at W&J focusing on math and science courses and then go to another school like Columbia or Case Western for two years to focus on whatever type of engineering I’d like to pursue.

Project SEED group in front of the technology center at W&J

Washington and Jefferson trip

2011-07-19T15:41:00.002-04:00

Today we went on a field trip to Washington and Jefferson college. To say that it surpassed my expectations is an understatement. You hear the name of two dead presidents and what comes to mind? Money? Snobbery? Maybe that was just for me, but I'm happy to say that none of those things seemed of prevelance to them. Our tour guide was very informative, and he stressed on giving us information about the college experience itself instead of selling us his school. That gave me a hint of the kind of teacher that they employ: caring first for education, then personal gain. I found that very impressive, because I was under the impression that every college was a ruthless business concerned first and foremost about their capital. Washington and Jefferson proved me wrong, and I couldn't be happier.

W & J Visit

2011-07-19T15:16:00.006-04:00

This week’s field trip was to Washington and Jefferson College and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I went there this morning expecting a tiny old broken down college. Fortunately however this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The chemistry building is brand new just opening up last year. Even the old buildings on campus like old main were nice and had a certain character to them. The campus itself was also a lot bigger than I anticipated it being.

But that’s enough about the physical campus; much is also to be said about Dr. Leonard our beginning tour guide and professor of chemistry at W & J. He was very informative and talked to us about all of different opportunities that are available at the college. After his tour of the new chemistry facilities, we headed over to admissions to have a presentation which gave us some information on the college itself as well as the admissions process. Finally we ended the day with a full student led tour of campus, and lunch in the dining hall. Both went very well.

Overall the visit went very well, and I am now aware of the tremendous possible opportunities to be had at Washington and Jefferson College.

W&J College

2011-07-19T14:59:00.002-04:00

Today's field trip was to Washington and Jefferson College, I liked it a lot. I'm considering on applying there but I'm not quite sure about going there yet. I still have many more options, I think I should still tour more colleges around the Pittsburgh area. Some things I liked about the college is that it's very nice, modern and old in some parts. It's by Tanger Outlets, one of my favorite places to shop! It's doesn't actually have the field that I want to major in but it has certain subjects that will start me off that'll prepare for the graduate school of engineering, but overall it was a great school.

Blog Challenge #2

2011-07-19T14:42:00.003-04:00

Interview with Dwayne Coleman

Q:So, how's your day?

A:My day is going great.

Q:What did you work on today?

A: Today I worked on my powerpoint and tested samples using the IR.

Q:Do you like the things you are working on?

A:Yeah, my topic is pretty interesting.

Q:On a scale of 1-10, how much do you like this program?

A: I would definitely dive the program a 9 or a 10 because it is very informative and useful for the future.

Q:If you could, would you do this program again next year?

A: I would say yeah I would participate in the program next year if I could.

Q:Is there anything you would change about the SEED program?

A:No, nothing I can think of.

Q:How's your relationship with your professor, undergrad and/or grad students?

A:Both my professor and grad students are great, very friendly people.

Q:I heard you had a very good powerpoint presentation, were you nervous about that at all?

A:No, I wasn't all that nervous for my powerpoint presentation.

Q:Are you nervous about the symposium?

A:Nope.

Q:Does anything your doing in your lab have anything to do with your future job of what you wanna be?

A:It could possibly have something to do with my future career but I'm not sure just yet.

Well thanks for your time, hope all goes well.

Blog Challenge #2

2011-07-18T08:24:00.008-04:00

Deja Irvin interviewed by Dwayne Coleman

Q. Hello Deja how are you doing?

A. I am doing great

Q.What is the topic of your project?

A. Simulation of Leucine in Salt Solutions

Q. What practical applications does this have?

A. Leucine is actually in the human body. It is in

the liver, adipose tissue and muscle tissue

Q. How are you conducting your research?

A. We are using programs called VMD and NAMD

on the mac computers. We also use supercomputers

to run our salt boxes and get more info.

Q. Are you enjoying the research that you are doing?

A. Somewhat. I guess. Its a lot of work and its kind of

hard to.

Q. How do you like your professor and mentor Mary?

A. My professor is pretty good and very nice. And Mary?

I love mary she;s an awesome mentor/undergrad.

Q. What are you hoping to accomplish this summer?

A. More about Science to get me through my junior year of high school.

Blog Challenge #2

2011-07-15T13:35:00.006-04:00

Investigating the pKa of Molecules within Protein Complex Cytochrome bc1
Interview with Sonny Smarra
Q:So Sonny how would describe what you've been researching with in the past couple weeks?
A:Confusing. Definitely harder than school, but its still kind of fun. I am a computer jockey. I spend all day staring at numbers on a screen. I make molecules in Gauss View. Then i transfer them over to Linux which then runs molecules through the supercomputer Voyager. It simulates how the molecules react in certain situations.
Q: How would this be important to me in everyday life?
A:It could lead to new anitbiotics and fungicides.
Q:How far are you in your research?
A:I am still getting used to operating systems, so only half way.
Q:What is Cytochrome bc1 and what does it help with?
A:Cytochrome bc1 is a protein, and it plays a vital role in energy storage.
Q:What happens to the body when it shuts down?
A:For humans it causes dieases like cardiomyapothy. But for bacteria and fungus if it were to malfunction it would essentially kill them.

Blog Chllenge #2

2011-07-15T10:36:00.004-04:00

A Benign Novel Approach towards the Synthesis of Copper (I) Cyanide Coordination Polymers
Marissa De Fratti Interviewed by Liz Thornton
Q. How would you describe your project?
A. So, my project is to synthesize coordination polymers of copper. Coordination polymers they’re being studied because of their wide applications. We’re trying to make known and unknown coordination polymers and determine their crystal structures with x-ray crystallography. The usual methods require high temperatures and high pressure over long periods of time to obtain coordination polymers. We’re trying to use a more economical and environmentally friendly method.
Q. Why is your research important?
A. My research is important because coordination’s polymers are used in so many fields. They’re used for gas filtration with carbon dioxide, they’re used in luminescent like LED lights, and other things. So it makes the process of making the polymers for these products less costly and more environmentally friendly.
Q. What do you hope to accomplish?
A. We want to make unknown coordination polymers of copper, identify their crystal structures, and determine the final products in the process.
Q. How do you actually do this?

A. I synthesize different copper complexes with different ligands. So, to do that we start with our amino acid which is alanine and we add sodium hydroxide to deprotonate it, and dissolve it in methanol at room temperature. Then we take either copper (I) chloride or copper (I) bromide and dissolve it in methanol. The deprotonated amino acid is slowly added to the copper (I) solution. From that our products area copper complex and either sodium chloride or sodium bromide depending on which one we use. We filter out most of the salts. Then we take our ligand and dissolve it in methanol then slowly add it to the copper solution. From that we get our copper complexes.
Now we take our copper complexes and add 10 equivalents of azobisisobutyonitrile (AIBN), which is our reducing agent, and 2 equivalents of ascorbic acid for less reducing of copper complexes. Then we let them sit in an oil bath of 60-80˚C for 48hrs. Afterwards we will either get a crystal which is what we want or a powder which means that the reaction crashed. If it’s a crystal we identify the structure with x-ray crystallography and if it’s a powder we look at it with ultra violet/visible light spectroscopy.
Q. Has you project been successful so far?
A. Many of our coordination polymers have been crashing out or yielding bad crystals that are not orderly and periodic in their arrangement. We want the crystals to have very pristine structures, because that makes them easy to identify. Now we are experimenting with different methods that look promising.

Blog Challenge #2

2011-07-15T09:51:00.004-04:00

Ivermectin Sensitive Glycine Receptor Mutations
Elizabeth Thornton interviewed by Marissa De Fratti

Q. How would you describe your project?

A. Well, I mutate plasmid (which is DNA) and then I put it into XL-1 Blue Supercompetent cells, which are a type of frog stem cells. After that we let them shake in the shakey-shakey machine overnight so that the DNA will be absorbed into the cells. Then we mini-prep the cells by putting them in different solutions (like ethanol) to lys them (which means to break them open) and then dump the solutions into test tubes. The test tubes are put into the centrifuge which rotates at high speeds and this process filters out unwanted material from the cell. Finally the solutions are sent with primers to Pittsburgh University for sequencing (which is the translation of the DNA to see if it was mutated).

Q. Why is any of that important?

A. The glycine receptor is directly related to nerves, including pain receptors. The glycine receptor is widely distributed throughout the body, mainly in the central nervous system. So, if the structure can be understood then we can understand why nerves keep sending signals to the pain center, even after the source of the pain has been healed. Hopefully, this will lead to the treatment of chronic pain.

Q. What do you hope to accomplish?

A. By mutating the cells we make them ivermectin (IVM) sensitive. This means that the glycine receptor will open when IVM attaches to it, when that happens we are able to control the glycine receptor state. The glycine receptor has an open, closed and desensitized state. When it’s open we can see the structure in that state. By looking at the receptor in its open state, which has never been seen before, we can then calculate what it would look like in its desensitized state. The desensitized state is almost the same as the closed state so with further calculations we can also determine its closed state.

Q. Has your project been successful so far?

A. Yes! We have all the mutations that we need: K206C, A290C, H419C. After the cells have been mutated, my part is over and the mutated glycine receptor plasmid is moved to the bacmid virus using Bac-to-Bac Baculovirus Expression System.

ahh?

2011-07-14T13:27:00.002-04:00

Today went well, presenting for my first time I was so NERVOUS!!!! I hope everyone thinks I did well because I tried my best, I feel I did do pretty good for the first time, it'll get better hopefully. My next big goal is to get my teragrid account moving because without that I can't really accomplish anything, I'd just keep talking about the same things and that's not very fun for me or you guys either. My other goal is to start working on the poster that'll be due next week I think. This program is very challenging, it's way more than what I expected it to be. Today is kind of slow though because no one is really here everyone went to kennywood, but other than that everything's okay for now. I just have to stay focused!

First Field Trip

2011-07-12T16:24:00.002-04:00

Our first filed trip was pretty cool. My favorite part was talking to Allison about forensics. Now that I've spoken with her about some things, I think I'm kind of interested in going that direction even though people say engineering is a good field to look into. I still have time to decide so I guess I'll have my mind set eventually. Anyways, were almost half way through the SEED program and I still haven't recieved my account for the super computer.I'm looking forward to getting that,as soon as I do get that I will be on the ball and rolling. That is all for today though, TTYL :)

RJ Lee trip

2011-07-12T14:40:00.004-04:00

Todays trip to RJ Lee group was very interesting and informative. We spend time with some of the different groups at the company, including nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and the forensics divisions. their presentations and tours provided a lot of insight into the world of industry, and what kind of life and career that would yield. Probably some of the best advice I heard today was when thinking of a college major try to stay as broad as possible, for instance go for chemistry with a focus in forensics rather than a specialized forensics program. this advice I believe can be applied to just about anything not just forensic science.
But on a separate subject its hard to believe how fast the program is moving along. we are already well into the fourth week but it seems like such a shorter time. My Grad student mentor has been very helpful to me in things like editing my abstract, and pulling IR spectra off the computer so they can be used in a power point. And finally I would just like to say that I finally have an understanding of my topic

Blog Challenge 2

2011-07-12T14:26:00.002-04:00

This is my interview of collaborator and fellow SEED studet Chelsea Weidaw.

Q: Hi Chelsea, how're you today?
A: Not bad, you?
Q: If you don't mind I'll be the one asking the questions here. Jeeze. Are you ready?
A: Oh yeah...I guess.
Q: Fantastic. Is SEED everything you expected?
A: Yeah I guess. It's a lot harder than i thought it would be. It's actually just the reading. Originally I didnt'k know what any of the words meant.
Q: I know what you mean. But Google was your messiah right?
A: Messiah...? If you mean did it help, yeah.
Q: Are you excited for the symposium?
A: I don't think excited is a good word to describe it. Anxious maybe.
Q: Anxious about what in particular?
A: Pretty much just the people. I might get some Einstein who knows everything to know about Forensic Analysis. He'd probably tear apart everything I said.
Q: I bet not! And plus you could always just hide under a box. Fool proof plan. Do you actually like what you're doing?
A: Of course! I love all the CSi and all the cop shows so this is really interesting. I know it wont't be anything like the shows but I'm ok with that. I don't think guns suit me anyway.
Q: So is your heart set on forensics for college?
A: I'd say so. Nothing else seems as interesting, at least to me.
Q: So what exactly is your project?
A: I'm analyzing hairs and the products used on them. It's basically using the GC/MS to really look at them.

So there it is, my interview of Chelsea. She has what she wants to do figured out. Which is more than I can say. I'm clueless.

Half way there!!

2011-07-12T13:58:00.003-04:00

So i glanced at the calendar today and realized that the research symposium (Our main event) was only sixteen days away. It's amazing how fast the time is flying by. It seems like only yesterday i was scrambling to find my way here. I'm even almost okay with waking up at 6:30 in the morning. Almost.
However, on a better note, we went on a field trip today to tour the RJ Lee group building. What they do there is nothing short of amazing; they've studied from the air at Ground Zero to lead paint in Hasbro toys. That was the first time I think i've actually noticed industrial science. I'm not saying I thought everything happened by magic or anything, I just hadn't put much thought into it. I think that appealed to me most there was the talk we had on the finer points of forensic science. I was shocked to learn that bullet particles on an accused criminal didn't automatically spell guilty. They are apparently easily transferrable, the most common place this happens is actually the police station, which seems kind of counter productive to me.
Lets all give me a standing ovation though!! I'm actually starting to semi kind of sorta understand my project. On a serious note, most of it is starting to come together. When i first started to get it I was so thaknful. It was a breath of fresh air when I figured out how to enter my molecules into the supercomputer. I think it's time for me to go though. I still have work and all, so until next time!!

Field Trip

2011-07-12T13:46:00.002-04:00

Today the Project SEED students including my self and Mr. Lucas took a tour of Rj Lee Group. It was an opportunity of a life time for myself. The workers there were so friendly and made the tour very educational plus fun. I learned a lot about what I want to study in college when I get out of high school. What i am very interested in is Forensic sciences. They had a lot of opportunies there to learn about forensics. I think I would be very interested in doing some kind of internship there or maybe even work there out of college. During the tour we were shown some very expensive instruments that would be very interesting to learn how to use. Overall this was the best place I've got to visit about what I would like to do for a living. I'm very thankful to have got to visit Rj Lee.

Blog Challenge #2

2011-07-01T07:54:00.002-04:00

Interview one of your fellow Project SEED students and summarize their project in a blog post -most detailed, best written wins. Everyone should interview someone different.

As always, pictures and video are worth extra.

5th day of the SEED program

2011-06-24T10:38:00.004-04:00

it's the 5th day of seed, 6 days away from my long weeek vacation so excited :) anyways, everything is so far so good. Mary is back teaching me more things. We tried to get started on my project but the moe program doesn't work on my computer ughh -_____-, so now we have to wait for Bonnie to reinstall it. I've been reading so much lately though. My junior year in school, I should have an A in both english and physics. I also started making up my hours, I've made up 5 hrs so far.. so that means 5 down 30 more to go yaaay!(sarcastic v.) but that's kinda it for now.

as the days go on..

2011-06-23T13:17:00.002-04:00

It is now the fourth day into project seed and now im starting to understand so i think a lot of my reading. I think it is going to be pretty fun once i get in the lab...but what i wanted to say was.. i present next thursday and im really nervous.. Today Liz and Marissa presented and they were asked a lot of questions which i know im gonna get alot of that too.. i hope i can do it..

blog challenge#1

2011-06-23T13:06:00.003-04:00

Ooops -_- I forgot about this ...But anyway My name is Chelsea Weidaw and I am going to be a junior at Sto-Rox Highschool. I live in a kinda small town called McKees Rocks right outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
This summer I really hope too accomplish a lot. I hope to find out what kind of hard working person I really am and to see if I can make it through the hard times of college work. I know this isn't going to be easy..but if Mr. Lucas didnt think i could do it i wouldn't be here. So I believe in myself to accomplish many things this summer. I hope to expand my vocabulary and not use the same boring works I do.
So my first impressions of project seed were that omg..this is gonna take up my whole summer i am not gonna have a life and this is going to be so hard. But now that i am a couple days into this project i am feeling comfortable and i am ready to see what things i am going to learn. Im really excited. So i think what im going to be working on is some kind of analyzing of hairs and seeing if i can pull chemicals from the hair and figure out what it is. maybe. something like that.. But i am going to be working a lot with the instrument called GC/MS..
Well thats all, let the summer begin :)

Duquesne Press Release

2011-06-22T21:18:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone. Here is a link to an article in the Duquesne Times.

http://mail.srsd.k12.pa.us/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://times.duq.edu/2011/06/high-schoolers-discover-college-careers-in-science-through-project-seed/

Yay! Project SEED

2011-06-22T19:48:00.002-04:00

Hello again! My name is Liz Thornton; I am a student at Sto-Rox High School and live in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. I will be entering school as a senior this year, and am a second year Project SEED student. Last year when I first began my research in Dr. Cascio’s lab under the guidance of Chelsee, an amazing graduate student that help me so much, I did not think I would ever understand what it was that I was supposed to be doing. I spent the first week reading the same three papers over and over again. I picked every other word apart and put them into Google. Then I read the papers again. I went to Chelsee to get a better understanding of what parts of the paper I should spend the most time learning, because they were the most relevant to what I would be doing. Then I went to Mr. Lucas and read it again with his help. Although he couldn’t help me very much because he doesn’t do biochemistry and didn’t know many of the biology words used the way he told me how to figure them out really helped. After reading for the same paper over and over again even when I closed my eyes I could see the words. It was hard work, and my sister who is an alumni of Project SEED warned me it would be tough, but that I had to be persistent, and I was. Soon I understood what I was doing and little by little everything that I didn’t understand started making sense. It just takes time, energy, and the want to learn it. This year I am working on the same project, which is mutating the ɑ1 glycine receptor which will aid in understand the conformational changes of the receptor and help in studies that could help treat neurological disorders related to the nervous system, but since my cells are working I will be doing more than just the mutation part of the procedure.
Along with the hard work came the great fun that came with knowing all the Project SEED students (even the adopted ones…Chris). We would spend our lunch time eating and playing and just enjoying getting to know each other and becoming friends. From the lunch time to the field trips we became a family. We turned to each other for help and to vent our problems. We encouraged each other to do our best, and pushed each other. Having the opportunity to spend this summer with three students I already know from school, and two students I am excited to get to know I expect it to be just as amazing as last year. The week of summer I spent waiting for Project SEED to start did not feel like summer without Project SEED my summer would be awful. So now that Project SEED has started so has my summer, and I know it will be an awesome one!

Blog challenge #1

2011-06-22T14:47:00.003-04:00

Hello, my name is Dwayne; I attend Central Catholic High School in Oakland, and live in the Lincoln area of Pittsburgh.

I came into project seed this summer with the intention of learning and gaining a better understanding of the field of chemistry. While I still hope to accomplish just that it seems as though the task is going to be a bit more of a challenge than I originally thought. But that simple fact will not hinder my plight towards my goal of knowledge. The next goal that I was hoping to accomplish this summer was to gain an experience that will be useful at a later time.

With all that said my experience thus far has been good. My mentor as well as all the graduates and undergraduates that I will be working with are all exceptionally nice people, and really know what they are doing and talking about. My initial thoughts on the work that I will be doing this summer are of a skepticisitc nature. Not skepticism that what I am attempting to do can actually be done, but skepticism that I will be able to fully comprehend and understand my topic in the eight weeks the program lasts. my skepticism however is somewhat diminished by mentors who promise me that it is possible and will be done (I believe them). Perhaps now is a good time to say what my topic is, so in my topic I am looking to find self-assembled monolayers on titanium alloy strips (let me just say its a lot more complicated than it sounds). So far I have delved right in to the experiment over the past two day already testing my first six samples of titanium in 12-hexadeldecanoic using the infrared spectrometer. Let me end by saying all of the people that I have met so far including Mr. Lucas and my fellow ProjectSeed members are great people, and very nice

Starting the grind

2011-06-22T13:33:00.003-04:00

It is now the third day of the project, and I'm only starting to grasp the basics of my topic. The slow going progress I'm experiencing is new to me, because I've always been a fast learner. Compared to my usual speed, I'm feeling about as fast as molasses, and thats being generous. Very generous. I guess I'm going have to get used to this. I'd say it has humbled me, but I think I'll save that line for later. After all, it's gonna get a lot harder before it gets easier.

Blog challenge 1

2011-06-20T16:04:00.003-04:00

Hello, my name is Sonny Smarra, I attend Sto-Rox high school and I live in McKees Rocks.

I think it's fair to say my hopes for this summer can be boiled down into one word; SURVIVE. As of this moment, the work I'm scheduled to get done is on a seemingly impossible to reach plateau. However, I had hoped for this very situation: I came into this program looking to be pushed to my intellectual limits, and right now it seems like that will be no problem. My main goal for this summer is to to be able to hold my own in a conversation with my professor about my project (which by the way is Predicting the protonation states of amino acid side chains in the protein complex cytochrome bc1.) and to develop work habits that will help me in all facets of my life.

Okay, heres the fun part. My first impressions of this program. When I was first told my project name,(Predicting the protonation states of amino acid side chains in the protein complex cytochrome bc1.) my first thought surprisingly wasn't ,"Whaaaaaa??!!?!". I was too busy marveling at the respiratory strength needed to say that in a sentence. So it's safe to say when I met the staff here I was pleasantly surprised. I expected a bunch of hard nosed scientists who didn't want to be bothered by a meager high school student. Instead, I was greeted with respect and I can sense that all of the professors are very passionate about education and their respective projects. I still have no idea what my project is, but I can say i have faith that everyone will do their part to explain everything to me. Now i just have to worry about understanding it.

First Blog Challenge #1

2011-06-20T15:48:00.002-04:00

My name is Deja. I attend Steel Valley High School in Munhall, PA and I live in Homestead, PA.

During the SEED program I hope to accomplish many things that will help me in my later life. I look forward to finding out and doing new things. I'm also looking forward to the extra money I will be making to help me start my savings for college. I'm hoping to make new friends and getting to know everyone a little better. My experience so far has been great, I met the SEED students and the undergraduates that will be helping me this summer. I didn't get to meet my professor yet but I'm looking forward to that also.

My first impressions so far on this program is WOOAAAHH! it's going to be a long summer. Learning how to create all these things and also being the youngest person doing what I'm going to be doing. I feel more educated already. Today I did do a couple tutorials molecules. I will be learning about the salts in the different molecules and how we can decrease them a little. I will also be learning about the Hofmeister series and many other things, so this shall be a very interesting and great learning experienced summer. I really had no clue what this was going to be like when I signed up for it but now that I'm here, I'm glad I did sign up for it.

First day at project seed

2011-06-20T11:16:00.003-04:00

my first impressions of project seed are good ones, the people are very nice and I think that this will be a very interesting experiance that I will remember for a long time. I hope to gain exactly that an experiance that will last a lifetime, as well as a better understanding of the field of chemistry. so far today we recieved a general overview of the program went to human resources, and now write blogs.

Senior Year~ Blog Challenge #1

2011-06-20T11:15:00.004-04:00

I missed you Project SEED! Remember me? I'm Marissa De Fratti, senior at Sto-Rox High School, which is in Mckees Rocks. Last year I worked in Dr. Pintauer's lab with Carol and Matt studying the Opitmization and Parameterization of IR and GC for Simple Reaction Mixture Analysis in ATRA. That all sounds quite fancy, but really it's very simple. Basically all I did was study the reaction of ATRA (Atom Transfer Radical Addition) with the Gas Chromatographer and the Infrared Spectrometer. Most of the research was conducted on the GC though, because the IR was broken for the majority of the summer. Actually, the GC broke pretty often too, but it was easier to fix. I really hope that doesn't happen this year...
The first few days of SEED weren't nearly as bad as last year. I remember walking into my lab, see everything and everyone, and then wondering what I got myself into. The whole first week I struggled to comprehend that there were even such things as ATRA, halogen atoms transfer agents, or different mol% catalysts. It felt like there was no way I could understand all of this and present it at the end of the summer. But after the first week things started to get clearer. Slowly I began to understand all the jargon and reactions. Eventually I could even run my reactions on my own (well, Phoebe was there too.) By the end of the summer I could say the ATRA reaction in my sleep. Everyone I worked with, students(undergrads, grads and high schoolers) and professors alike all ended up contributing my success and I miss everyone who didn't return this year...
In a lot of ways though, this years a lot better. Its more comforting to come back to the lab that I was already in last year, instead of starting over new; though only three people were still there since the rest had graduated. I got a new graduate student(Raj), who was there last year. The project we're working on, is loosely related to my previous one with ATRA, but the jargon and advanced technical terms have become familiar. This year we're working on Coordination Copper Complex Polymers. Technically I'm only working on coordination copper complexes since in order to make the polymer I would need to use AIBN, but I can't since it's too explosive. Overall, making the complexes is pretty simple. The difficult parts are waiting for the solutions to precipitate(assuming they do) and hoping that there's a good yield. My first one didn't go to well; we only got a 37% yield. I'm hoping the next ones I make will go a little better?
Anyway, the first weeks always the hardest and I know it gets easier after that. I'm kinda sad that Matt, Ash and Sean are gone and that Will will be leaving at the end of the week, but the new people are fun. I still have Raj and Carol comes back at the end of the week anyway. :D
And so...I hope this year ends up being even better than the last one.

Blog Challenge #1

2011-06-20T11:11:00.003-04:00

For our first blog challenge write about the following:

1. Identify yourself, your high school, and the neighborhood where you live.
2. Write a paragraph that describes what you hope to accomplish this summer.
3. Write a paragraph that describes your initial impressions of Project SEED, the work you will be doing, and the people you've met so far.

If you are returning SEED student adapt the above.

Best written, most reflective wins.

Make sure you label all blog entries with your name.

Judging will be by close of business Wednesday.

First thoughts

2011-06-20T11:10:00.003-04:00

Overall science is a pretty intimidating idea. I mean, how can you even grasp that you're dabbling in something that took our race hundreds of years to come up with? That is why initially I was frightened at the idea of SEED. However, as i sat down at the conference table to meet my fellow participanta I couldn't help but also be excited. This seems like it will be a fantastic oppurtunity and something that will help me not only in my future, but the here and now. I can honestly say that I think I'll flourish under these conditions. I find that I'm at my best when I'm hard at work, putting my nose to the grindstone. This in no way should detract from the complexity of what we'll be doing here though. I yawned while Dr.Aitken was explaining something and was lost in the huge void that is my ignorance for the rest of her explanation. I think it will suffice to say that I'm genuinely excited for this program and looking forward to the days ahead. +

First Day!

2011-06-20T11:09:00.003-04:00

My first day is going well so far, learning new things is always interesting. I'm excited to see what else project seed has in store for us for the summer. I was kinda nervous because I'm really not good at meeting new people I'm kind of shy as everyone can see but once I get to know everyone better I'll let loose a little. This seems like an early college life experience, I hope for the best & hope that this helps me in later life.

First day

2011-06-20T11:08:00.002-04:00

Coming into project SEED today I was very nervous. I didn't know what to expect or who I was going to be meeting. Once we had the meeting and everything was explained to us what was going to be going on my nerves calmed down. Now I am very excited to start working in the lab and learn a lot of things I am not aware of. During this experience I think I am going to benifit from many things. This will show me how ready I am for college and to figure out how capible I am of handling things on my own. This will also help me become more comfortable with speaking infront of people because im not that good at it.

Project SEED Calender

2011-06-10T07:16:00.010-04:00

Countdown

2011-06-07T10:47:00.001-04:00

Only 13 more days until Project SEED starts up again. Can't wait to meet the new students!

Forensics Day Summary

2011-05-25T12:43:00.008-04:00

This year Duquesne University's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry helped to facilitate Forensics Day at Sto-Rox High School. A crime scene was setup, evidence was gathered, and finally analysis was performed with the university's secondary electron microscope. High school students collaborated with graduate students Mrs. Kim Rosmus and Mr. Carl Burnetta from Dr. Jennifer Aitken's solid-state chemistry research group. Students compiled their data, drew conclusions with respect to the "crime's" perpetrator, and presented their findings for review. Below is a video that summarizes our work.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0923183.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Experience of a Lifetime

2010-08-23T23:35:00.000-04:00

Well, I told you that our SEED adventure wasn't over yet. However, it is coming to a close. Tomorrow is our last day in Boston and the past two days have been nothing but amazing. We went to a Red Sox Game, got lost in a mall, rode trains in circles, all sorts of things that you wouldn't do in Pittsburgh. Trust me, this has been an adventure that I will never forget.

The night before we left, Amanda and I could not sleep. We were up until 2 a.m feeling nothing but excitement. It was her first time flying ever and my first time flying to another state. We stayed up talking about what we thought was going to happen while we were there. We talked about how we thought the poster session was going to go and we wondered what the other SEED students were going to be like.

Then, we arrived at the airport. Who knew that three teenagers could have so much fun in an airport? We were having a blast walking along the moving walkways, taking pictures of absolutely everything and anxiously waiting for the plane to get there. The three of us talked about the strangest things, but maybe because we were all still tired from waking up so early. It did not hit me we were really going until we got onto the plane.

We got onto the plane, found our seats and just waited patiently to depart from Pittsburgh. Flying is one of the best feelings in the entire world. It's something that not everyone gets to experience. We even had fun on the flight. We took pictures, talked and watched tv. It did not feel real until I looked out of the window and we were low enough to see the outline of the ground.

The view outside of my window was nothing that I have ever seen before. When I first looked out, I could only see the outline of the ground. Everything else looked microscopic. A few minutes later, I looked out of my window again. This time, I could see more environmental features. I could see islands, trees cars moving and some buildings. The sight of the islands were amazing. Then, I looked out again. I saw the beautiful city. The tall buildings, boats everywhere and water everywhere around us. That was when I knew we were there.

We went to the hotel , changed and got ready for the Red Sox game. That was one experience that I will never forget. Who gets to go to Boston AND see a Red Sox game? Us project SEED kids, that's who. Fenway Park was everything I thought it would be. I've heard so much about it but I never thought it was something that I would get to visit one day. It's breathtaking. Even though it rained the ENTIRE time, it was still worth it. The poster session was an experience of a lifetime. I loved having people look at my hard work and ask a ton of questions. The fact that I was able to answer their questions made me feel proud. I was proud of myself for all of the hard work. My favorite part had to be whenever someone would ask you about your research then ask, "So what are you studying in college?". When i would answer that I was only an upcoming senior in high school, all of the different looks that i got amazed me. Most people were unbelievably shocked that i was a senior in high school doing work like this. Some younger adults even told me that I was crazy for taking up my summer time for work like this. In general, I could not help but smile at these comments. It makes me feel accomplished for doing this type of work in just 2 short summers. It makes me so proud of myself as well.

Today, we attended the ACS luncheon and the Poster Session. The luncheon was not what I thought it was going to be. Us project SEED kids were mixed in with all sorts of important people. At first, it was pretty nerve wracking. Being forced to talk to a bunch of people I did not know did make me a little nervous.

I cannot express enough how grateful I am to have been given the chance to go to Boston. I got to have adventures with 2 great friends of mine and 2 great adults who took the time out of their summer to support and be here for me. I cannot thank them enough. I would not be here today if it were not for Dr. Cavanaugh and Dr. Aitkin. As my mentor, Dr. Cavanaugh did everything she could to prepare me for Boston and she took the time to give me an experience of a lifetime. Without the support of Dr. Aitkin, this trip would not have been possible. The things she does for us SEED kids is unbelievable and I thank her for that.

In general, Boston is beautiful. I may never get the opportunity for this again and I greatly appreciate it. Continuing my project SEED adventure was the greatest thing I could have done. I am so glad that I chose to do project SEED. It has been a big eye opener for me. It has lead me to a potential career path, got me in contact with important people and so many other things. I hope future SEED students do not take this for granted. As I have said plenty of times before, it is the experience of a lifetime.

The Beautiful City Of Boston

2010-08-22T22:05:00.005-04:00

Departing this morning was one of the more exciting events in my life. Sydney & I stayed up until 2 am, filled with excitement. We couldn't wait to depart for Massachusetts. Soon enough we woke up at 6, got ready for the plane ride, and filled Mr. Lucas' car with our luggage. So squished in the backseat with Tristan & Syd, Ms. Hannagan in the passenger, and Mr. Lucas driving, we drove off to the airport.

I wish I could have caught every moment on camera, without it being too much, because the airport was such a great experience. We had fun walking on the moving floors for luggage. When you walk, it feels like you're flying! After figuring out where I had to put my things in the security bins, we were free to roam about the airport. So we went to a cafe type thing and got a small breakfast. We switched gates to board, and were finally on the plane!

The plane ride was so exciting. It was my first time flying, and I loved it. The clouds were beautiful and so was the ground from way up high. We got off the plane, into a taxi van, & soon walked into our hotel. We ventured our way to the ballpark through the subway stations. That was another fun experience. Following that, we found Fenway, went to the game. We sat & ate for an hour, then faced the rain at the Red Sox game. After an hour delay, the game finally started! And then it was delayed again because of rain. Mr Lucas left early to give his poster presentation. The three of us stayed with Ms. Hannagan. So after 4 hours of facing the rain at this game, we finally left.

We all came back to the hotel, relaxed for a little bit, & then decided to go see a movie. We snacked on some food at the theater. Then, we faced the rain yet again when we walked home. We (minus Mr. Lucas) have decided that it only rains when we walk outside. Oof. Great luck, huh? Boston has been a great experience so far, except for the one way street that people keep driving the wrong way down. Boston drivers use their horns. ALOT. Tomorrow we have a lunch to go to, a visit to Harvard & MIT, possibly a museum to visit, & posters to present in the evening. It's going to be a busy day.

To end on a good note, the Red Sox won today, 5, nothing, against the Toronto Blue Jays. :)

-Amanda Anderson

Last Day Of The Last Year

2010-08-13T16:42:00.002-04:00

It's the last day for us Project SEED kids. I can't even think about the whole thing without fluffing my feathers. I wrote what Mr.Lucas says to be an amazing paper, composed weeks of data into a giant chart, and created an information packed poster for the ACS meeting in a few weeks. This year I feel so much more accomplished. Last year I didn't know what to expect from Duquesne. A giant lab filled with machines that I didn't know how to use, and a professor talking to me about things I hardly knew? Yeah, that's what I got. But I also got so much more. I got a chance to work in a college environment many years before I would even have the chance to do that kind of research.

Last year I worked with Naudia, an undergraduate on Detecting Chromium III and VI in Dietary Supplements. I worked with her most of the time, and I have to admit. I felt like I shouldn't touch anything, or ask any questions, or even have my say in what she was doing. But after I started talking to her for a while, I learned that she was sometimes as clueless as I. When we did start talking, I think we sort of helped each other out. I asked questions, and sometimes even retrieved the answer from Dr. Rahman myself. The whole thing started to get intriguing right when it ended. Right when I was really into it. Until next year, I thought to myself.

Over the entire school year I looked at my poster in Mr. Lucas' classroom. All I could think about was getting back to SEED, and starting my research again. It was all I referred to when I was writing mediocre lab reports in science class, when everyone else was freaking out. Soon enough it was prom, and graduation, and soon enough it was back to Duquesne!

It was like I never left. I knew everyone, and where everything was at. The veterans helped the new kids out, and I have to say, it felt good to be familiar with the place. The new kids came and I have to admit, I thought they were all going to be a little strange. Although I knew the kids from my high school, Ian and Mary seemed to be unfriendly. Before you knew it we were all laughing and joking around like we had been friends for years.

When I did get back to my lab, I found that I had a new project to learn about. Oh boy, I thought. Another bundle of new, confusing information. It turns out, it was practically the same as my research from the year before. Instead of working to detect only Chromium, I was working to detect all dangerous elements in supplements. It was about three weeks in and I hadn't done much in the lab beside clean microwave vessels.

Boy was I in for a surprise, I worked my tail off for 2 weeks straight, and it was the most rewarding thing ever. I felt so accomplished. I was doing real, college research in my lab. After everything, SEED was completely and totally worth giving up my summers. I gained so much knowledge, acquaintances, opportunities, and friends. My work will be in a publication, and I will have a letter of recommendation from a college professor as a high school student. Take that, college applications!

It's been a great two summers and I'm so thankful for Dr. Aitken, Dr. Kingston, Dr. Rahman, Mr. Lucas, Naudia, and Greg and everything they've done for me.

I have to say, I'm going to miss Starbucks, the Batcave, the computer lab, the fun Macs, group meetings, Tristan's awful grammar, the football field, frisbee, the "boys" on the football team, the teal lunch tickets, the friends I made, the crazy tactics of the other kids, the drafts I kept revising, the early mornings, the late evenings, "da" buses, the table by Aitken's office, and most of all, the great people at Duquesne. It was a great experience.

-Amanda Anderson :)

Time to Say Goodbye

2010-08-13T16:24:00.002-04:00

Wow, it is amazing how great things always go by too fast. I can remember coming the first day and everyone looking at me like I was crazy. I didn't know anyone. That time is now long gone. From the very first lunch we were all bonding very well and now we are great friends. The SEED students are all amazing people hat I am so glad to have met. This summer was amazing.

I had such a great time learning about all of the different aspects of chemistry from working in Dr. Basu's lab to touring PPG and Bayer. We did so many fun things this summer. I don't know what the rest of it will be like with about 3 weeks left full of Cross Country practice and getting to see my friends from school that graduated one last time before they go off to college. I think that it will still feel pretty empty though because I won't get to see all of my friends from SEED every day.

I am so glad to have had this opportunity to not only learn about chemistry but to meet new friends and have a great summer. Some people might think I was crazy for saying that this was fun but they weren't here, they didn't get to meet everyone. Thanks to Mr. Lucas for the coffee, the lunch, and all of the hard work that he put in to make sure we didn't look like idiots presenting at the symposium or when writing our papers. You made the summer great too. Thanks to Dr. Aitken, Dr. Basu, and Ben for helping so much in getting everything together for SEED and for helping me throughout the summer. It wouldn't be possible without you.

Most importantly thanks to Sydney, Marissa, Liz, Amanda, Mary, Tristan, and Chris for helping me survive here. Thanks for all of the great times and you are all amazing people. Keep in touch.

For the last time this is Ian writing a blog post. Thanks.

Last Thoughts

2010-08-13T14:27:00.005-04:00

As I'm working on this final blog it's slowly coming to me that my time here is coming to an end. Funny how I almost didn't even apply to see last year. My chemistry teacher came up to me one day and asked if I would be interested in applying. Meanwhile I just failed the last two chem test and you think I want to do this for the summer! I really didn't think of applying since I felt wasn't going to be accepted. But I decided to apply and a couple of months later out of nowhere Dr. Aitken called saying I was accepted. After the excitement phase came the (what did I get myself into) phase. But once I got here things were easier (especially since everyone else knew as much as me). I've gone through many experiences that were both good and bad. It was nerve racking presenting in group meetings, since other professors and grad students were there. Presenting at the symposium was an incredible experience being next to college students who had much more experience than us.

The field trips we went on including Bayer, PPG, Mylon and my favorite Washington and Jefferson College. They were all interesting in their own way and the car rides to and from were great.

But not everything was fun and games though. The weeks before the symposium and during the lab reports were both frustrating and time consuming. But when looking back on it I do appreciate Mr. Lucas taking his time working on our papers, (especially mine). I hope to think that my grammar skills have improved somewhat since being here.

At the end of it all I learned an incredible amount of knowledge about Chemistry. I worked with HPLC and Microfluidics and accomplished a lot in my short time here. I feel that I made an impact in my lab and it certainly boost my confidence for anything I do later on in life.

There are so many people to thank for helping me here so let me start.

First, I would like to thank Dr. Aitken for choosing me to do this summer research program. I hope she feels she made the right decision by selecting me.

My professor Dr. Mitch Johnson for his guidance and help on me understanding my project.

My student mentors Angela and Sean for their patience and knowledge and help. I know that without them I wouldn't have understood anything.

Mr. Josh Lucas for being my temporary guardian for these past two summers. Everything he has done has been appreciated and I give him my eternal gratitude.

And of course the friends that I made over these summers. Amanda, Sydney, Terrance, Candy, James, Mary, Chris, Ian, Liz, and Marissa have given me memorable moments that I won't soon forget. Thank you everyone.

Everyone says how proud they are of me for sacrificing my summer to do hard research at a program. And every time I laugh inside thinking that "sacrifice" was never the adjective in my mind to describe my time here at Project SEED.

The End

2010-08-13T12:34:00.002-04:00

My whole summer felt like an adventure. My first day at Duquesne didn’t start off so well. I had no idea how the whole bus system worked. Liz and I left two hours early to catch our bus, at a bus stop that was far away (even though there was one much closer, but we didn’t find this out until later). Riding the bus into town, I felt a little better, but I was still pretty nervous. When we got off the bus, we had no idea where Duquesne was. There was another bus that could’ve taken us to Duquesne, but Liz wanted to walk so I acquiesced. We were so lost. We walked in a lot of circles that were technically squares because, you know, the buildings and streets only really make straight lines. We crossed a few dangerous intersections, saw some scary things, and walked up an old wooden staircase that didn’t look too safe, but after an hour and a half we had finally made it to Duquesne. But when I saw the Starbucks, we ended up waiting outside for an hour until it opened to get breakfast before going over to Mellon. When we got there, everyone was gathered at the table near the window and I saw Sydney and Amanda already there. Me and Liz sat down and joined them while we waited for the rest of the SEED kids to arrive and talked about how lost we were that morning. I saw Tristan come in and my first impression of him was, “Oh…I really don’t think I like him.” Then came Mary, and then Ian. I thought they were both kind of weird at first. Ian looked like the kind of nerd that would be stuck up and correct people a lot. After everyone was there Mr. Lucas delivered us all to our labs. When I was introduced to my undergrad student, Matt, I was told he was really weird, but that he was really smart, too. And he was. I was introduced to everyone in the lab, and they were all really nice. Then Matt started showing me around the lab and explaining about my project. I swear I barely understood anything that came out of his mouth. I thought there was no way I was going to be able to understand all that and do research on it by the end of the summer. Matt kept telling me I’d understand it though, and also that I would hate him by the end of the summer. When it was time for lunch we all met up and walked over there together. The food was good, but sometimes the guy serving it would scare me so I tried getting most of the self-serve stuff for awhile. After lunch I went back to the lab and Matt explained how the Infrared Spectrometer (IR) and Gas Chromatographer (GC) worked. I didn’t like the GC, I still don’t. The IR was better, but… I still don’t like it too much.

The next day another girl was in my lab, doing the same research as me. She was Phoebe and her dad was friends with Professor Pintauer, and she was also coming to school here in the fall so he let her work in my lab. We had the same project so pretty much all of our work was together. That made me feel a lot better, having someone else that was as clueless as I was, or at least it felt like that. I thought Phoebe was a little weird at first, but you know I ended up realizing she was really cool and in the end, I’ll miss her.

The next weeks were spent reading chemistry books so I could understand my project, ask Matt a bunch of questions and running long scans on the GC only to find that most of them turned out bad, or that whatever it was we shot into it, didn’t come out. The IR also broke that week, so most of our project turned to the GC. It wasn’t that exciting, most days we both would just sit there and read our books. After lunch we would go to the field with everyone and play Frisbee. Except Liz, because she didn’t like Frisbee since apparently it’s a VERY dangerous sport, and sometimes it was. The field trips were fun and some of them were really interesting.

Then came the week of the symposium and I was gone the whole week at band camp. I really miss band before I went, but by the end of camp I really missed everyone here. The way some people talked about the symposium, they made it sound different than I imagined. I was scared some big professor was going to ask me a bunch of questions about my poster that I would have no idea how to answer, but I was able to explain everything to everyone who came over and answer all their questions, along with help from Phoebe.
The week after the symposium, the IR was finally fixed. All that week I spent getting data from the IR and procrastinating going to write my final paper. I actually didn’t start writing it until the final week. The last week here, I was really sad to leave, but I’m excited to finally be able to sleep in this summer.

In the end, I’m really glad I did this and I can’t believe a long time ago back in the school year I thought about not doing it. I would’ve done SEED all through high school if I could’ve. I learned about my project, ATRA, the machinery, and a lot about just working in college in general. It gave me a better perspective on a lot things, and it’s made me think harder now about my future and where I want to go for college, and how I’m going to get there. I really can’t say how much I’ll miss my lab group, since half of them won’t be there next year and all the seniors, even though they’ll come back and visit anyway. I’m glad I get to come back next year, but I really hope we still remember how to get here by then.

Thanks to everyone in my lab for helping me have such a good summer; Matt, Ash, Sean, Will, Carol, Raj, Anita, April, Phoebe and Tom. Also all the Project SEED kids; Liz, Sydney, Amanda, Tristan, Mary, Ian, Chris and Mr. Lucas for making sure we got everything done on time, always helping when we needed it and then sometimes buying me coffee. The cold stuff is still better.

Goodbye~

2010-08-13T12:14:00.005-04:00

This experience has taught me so much, from riding buses and not getting lost, to spiking Frisbees J I don’t know what exactly to write to convey how much I am going to miss everyone and how amazing this experience has been. One thing I do know, is that I had one of the most terrifying experiences here when me and Marissa rode the bus all the way to McKeesport. That was our first day of work, and we spent all day trying to get back home L
Besides the experience I had getting to Duquesne and coming from Duquesne my first day, I really had fun this summer, and, learned so much, I wish I could do it all over again, just because I don’t want to leave L
After eight weeks of Project SEED, it is now truly the end. I know everyone is probably really sad to be leaving, but I WILL be the optimist! We will definitely keep in touch. This summer I gained lab experience, knowledge, and friends that are indispensable. I'm really going to miss all of the very awesome people that I had the opportunity to meet. That is probably really bad grammar, but in the words of Tristan it would be correct, and there is no better way to describe everyone I met. At the beginning of this, I was really scared, of just working in the lab, but it was really fun, and I learned so much, I hope I have the opportunity to come back next year, because I definitely want to. So goodbye Sydney, Ian, Mary, Tristan, Amanda, Chris, Marissa, Chelsee, Shaun, Tim, and Dr. Cascio, and thank you for letting me work in your lab, and for teaching me so much.

Goodbye Duquesne University, Hello Senior year.

2010-08-13T10:43:00.012-04:00

August 13th already? Wow. Where did the last 8 weeks go? Well, i'll tell you where. Let's start off at the beginning. I worked and became closer with three people from my school, became closer with a great person from Carrick, met one pretty awesome girl from North Catholic High School, met one great guy from Sewickley Academy and met another cool guy from Upper St. Clair, who wasn't even in SEED with us, but we adopted into our group.

When SEED first started this year, I have to admit that I wasn't too sure of how it was going to be compared to last year. I didn't think that all 7 of us were going to click like we did. Some of us were shy. We didn't know what to expect. Amanda, Tristan and I certainly didn't know what to expect. Within a few days, Mary introduced us to the new addition of her group, Chris. Even though Chris wasn't one of us, we took him in with open arms. Weeks went by and I began to notice how close we were becoming. From making all kinds of jokes at lunch and playing frisbee on the field afterwards to the hilarious car rides on fieldtrips, we had a blast. From working with these different people, I have learned so much. I've learned a lot not only about them, but myself as well.

These past eight weeks have gone to a great load of hard work. In my two years of working in Dr. Cavanaugh's lab, I have worked harder than I ever have. When I arrived back on the first day, I was so excited to be back in the lab. Being in a lab with college students and professors really opened my eyes. Whether I was treating cells with different compounds, doing a protein assay or running a western blot, it all required so much patience and focus.

Project SEED has opened so many doors for me. I'm extremely grateful for being given this opportunity for two years in a row. Not only has SEED given me the experience of working in a lab and getting an early college experience, but it has provided me with a great deal of responsibility. I’ve learned to manage time and have patience with what I’m doing. SEED has helped me grow as a student and person in general. It has showed me to to prepare for just about anything that comes my way. Since I’ve been here two years, my experience has just been continued. I feel like being in SEED these past two years has really prepared me for college. It has also influenced my career choice extremely. To be honest, I really thought I knew what I was going to do after high school. I thought I had my mind set and everything. Boy, was I wrong. After this year, I changed my entire mind on what I want to do after high school. Since I’m now a senior in high school, that means a lot to me. You’d be surprised about how much one thing can just open your eyes. SEED has shaped and changed me into a better person as well. By making new friends, meeting important people and being counted on by important people, it changes you. Making new friends allowed me to bond and become friends with other kids who may or may not have the same interests as me. Meeting important people gives you this sense of pressure, meanig that you don’t want to say the wrong things to them. Presenting my work is a prime example of this pressure. It’s very nervewracking presesnting to people that you are not familiar with and that do not know the subject you are talking about. It adds more pressure if the person you’re working for is there because you don’t want to say the wrong things.

Aside from the nerve-wracking and time consuming stuff, we did have a lot of fun times. Out of all of the field trips we took, I’d have to say that the college visit to Washington & Jefferson really opened my eyes the most (not saying that none of the others opened my eyes too because they did). Being in another college atmosphere really brought this different feeling to me. This field trip really influenced both my college and career choices.

All in all, Project SEED was one of the best things I’ve ever decided to participate in. When I first started, I had no idea what to expect. I came in knowing that it was going to be a good bit of work, but I had no idea that it was going to grow on me so much. I was fascinated with what I was doing and I was very interested to see what my co-workers were also doing. In my second year, I sort of got off to a rough start.

To Dr. Cavanaugh, Darlene, Erika, Mayur and Katherine, thank you for everything over the past two summers. The time that you have all put in to make my experience that much better really means alot to me. I hope to keep in touch with you all.

To Dr. Aitkin and Mr. Lucas, thank you for all of the support you have given me the past two summers. There isn't a day where I won't appreciate everything that you have done for us. Without you, the program wouldn't run as smoothly. I thank you for the opportunity of a lifetime.

To Ian, Mary, Tristan, Amanda and Chris, i'm really going to miss you guys. We've made some great memories that I will never forget. Believe it or not, you guys have really changed me. I'm really going to miss my early morning workouts with Ian, our early morning talks in the batcave, taking pictures on the imacs, having little birthday parties, chilling in the batcave, our hilarious lunch times, the elevator rides, the field trips, learning how to play frisbee, watching the boys play soccer..I could go on and on. I'm honestly going to miss it all. I really hope that we all can stay in touch through the school year.

To Liz and Marissa, i'll miss you two as well. You two better hold it down for the SEED II students. I know you guys will be great role models for everyone else. Just have patience and keep your focus and you both will do great. Don't worry, we'll all be back to visit. =)

To the newcomers of SEED, appreciate what you’re about to participate in and don’t take it for granted. There are a lot of students that are dying to be in your position. With hard work, patience and responsibility, you'll succeed greatly.

As I sit here and write this final blog post, it's really hitting me that this is my last year at SEED. No more paper revisions, poster making, cell treating. Nope, it's all done. It was a lot of hard work and determination to get through it. To tell you the truth, i've never felt so accomplished. By doing this, I know I did something that I can be proud of myself for. Luckily for Amanda, Tristan and myself, our SEED experience isn't quite over yet. We get to travel to Boston for the ACS meeting and I couldn't be more excited. I think of how all of my friends tell me that i'm crazy for giving up my summer to do this. But, they won't ever understand why I chose to give up my summer for this. It's so much more than hard work. It's an adventure.

Even though i'm saying goodbye to Project SEED, i'm saying hello to my senior year of high school. I know the program will always be there and i'll always be back to visit. So, goodbye Duquesne, hello senior year.

Pictures from the Symposium

2010-08-13T09:13:00.005-04:00

Amazing Amanda Anderson

2010-08-12T09:25:00.008-04:00

Since the veterans are sticking together we must have Amanda showcase her works. Amanda is testing dietary supplements and the dangerous elements in them. These supplements come from companies that could possibly have contamination in them. Her goal is to find those contamination's such as lead, cadmium, and even arsenic.

In this picture Amanda is prepping Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). The ICP-MS is used for analysis of the blanks, standards, and samples involved in this project. Before the processing is started, a calibration curve is made to help determine how much of certain dangerous element is in the supplement. And the results are mind blowing!

Amanda has done incredible work over the past two summers to expose the companies of their negligence and making a safer enviornment for buying supplements. Nice Work!

Tristan Lee Freeman, the science guy!

2010-08-11T16:48:00.012-04:00

So, the veterans are working together on this one. =) This is Tristan. He's a summer II SEED student and he is a senior at Pittsburgh Carrick High School. We've gotten to work with him over the past two summers and believe me, it has been fun. Last year, his project was pretty interesting but, we seem to like his project this year better. We've gotten to spend a good bit of time just hanging out in the lab with him and see what he does.

This year, Tristan is continuing off of last years project. He is using droplet-based microfluidics to create continuous droplet flow using oil and aqueous phases. He is applying ratios to achieve this droplet flow.

In this picture, Tristan is looking into a microscope at a PDMS chip and analyzing the microdroplets flowing through the channel that is chemically etched into the chip. The droplets are formed from t-junction of the aqueous and oil phase. Tristan sets ratios in attempt to achieve the droplet flow that may or may not be successful.

Marissa at Work

2010-08-11T15:37:00.002-04:00

Marissa De Fratti prepares her first of five samples of 1-octene to scan on the Infrared Spectrometer (IR). Different solutions with different amounts of 1-octene diluted to 100 µL with methanol. The results of the scans are spectras with differing peaks depending on the concentrations of octene within the sample. On average, two to four scans of each sample is taken because of instrumental error. The data from the spectras is taken and then graphed in kaleidagraph. If the error is somewhere between 1 and .90, then the data is acceptable. By doing this she hopes to find that the IR is quantative enough so that it can be used to examine simple reaction mixture analysis in ATRA.

A day in the life of Liz (at duquense)

2010-08-11T14:24:00.008-04:00

Every day Liz is either doing transformations, mutatations, or somedays, both. Today she decided to do a transformation for us. She begins in this first picture by preparing the auto-claved pipette with a sterile tip before taking 1 µL of plasmid from a tiny test tube.

Then the plasmid is added into a sterile 14 mL polypropylene tube (which must be used because it is VERY sterile), while making sure not touch the sides of the tube with anything but the tip of the pipette because that is the only sterile part of the apparatus.

The last step before heat-shocking the sample is to add 50 µL of XL-1 blue Supercompetent cells to the polyproylene tube which will later absorb the plasmid into the cell, thus transforming it. After that the final transformations are sent to Pitt for sequencing, which usually takes about a week to get results. Most of the time the mutations are unsuccessful because of unknown reasons that could include an instrument or apparatus being unsterile, or a problem with the DPN1 restriction enzyme .

End of the Summer Checklist

2010-08-11T10:49:00.009-04:00

Here is a list of things we have to do. Please check this post often, cause I'll be updating it as we wrap things up. I post updates in bold.

1. End of Summer Survey - I'll post this link soon.

Survey Link

Go here and then click on "Student Follow-up survey".

When finished, you must print the acknowledgement that your survey
was received and sign your name and print your name on the page.

2. Thank you cards and poster - Everyone is responsible for writing two thank you card. Everyone must sign all thank you cards written. Thank you cards should be written in word, proof read, and then hand written into the card. Coordinate with each other so you don't write for the same person. Be personable and mention be sure to mention the reason why you are thanking them.

Ms. Barbara Adams- the librarian (thank you for the training) -Liz Thorton
Dr. David Seybert - Dean of the School of Natural Science (thank you for the lunches and salary support)- Ian Carroll

Tabitha Riggio (donation)
Dr. Mitch Johnson (for assistance and donation)
Dr. Jim Manner (donation)
Dr. Jeff Madura (assistance)- Ian Carroll
Dr. Paul Johnson (donation)-Sydney Burkholder
Mr. Philip Clarke (Participation in events and organizing tour and
financial aid, symposium) -Tristan Freeman
Dr. Michael Leonard (for organizing tour) -Tristan Freeman
Maria Revetta PPG (tour)-Sydney Burkholder
Tom Barclay - Bayer (tour) -Marissa De Frati
Dr. Joshua Pak (Project SEED committee chair) -Amanda Anderson
Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh (donation)
Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh (donation) -Marissa De Frati
Ms. Raihanah Rasheed (Project SEED office)

Cecilia Hernandez (Project SEED office)
Ms. Sandy Russell and Ms. Amy Stroyne (thanks for assistance) - Liz Thorton
Local Pittsburgh Section ACS (support) -Amanda Anderson

3. Transfer your photos to my laptop.

4. Finish Dr. Aitken's blog challenge.

5. Turn in papers by Friday.

6. ACS posters by Friday unless you are coming in next week.

7. Each of you must write a final blog post. It must summarize your experience. It must state clearly how this program has helped your grow as a scientist, adult, student, and person. It must contain appropriate thanks and acknowledgement folks who have helped you this summer.

Tag Team Blog Challenge

2010-08-11T10:46:00.007-04:00

Hey guys, this is Ian and Mary and we're gonna rock your socks. We decided to combine our posts into one awesome post filled with magical adventures in the realms of chemistry.

This is Mary. She is a senior at North Catholic High School and is working with Dr. Jeffry Madura in his computational chemistry lab. On an average day, she is running jobs on the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid super computer. Although, it took a lot of trials and errors... especially a lot of errors, to get to where she is now. Throughout the past 8 weeks, Mary has started over approximately 17 times (we lost count). Her project is to model the effects of sodium and potassium chloride on glutamic acid. The reason for doing such a wonderful project is to study how proteins made up of glutamic acid will be effected by sodium and potassium chloride. As you can see in the picture, she loves to decorate her cubicle..and everyone else's for that matter. Now that Mary finally has everything working properly, she is analyzing data 24/7. In this particular picture, she is analyzing her 2.0M NaCl salt box after 30 nanoseconds of molecular dynamics.

_________________________________________________________

This is Ian. He is also going to be a senior but he goes to Sewickley Academy. He is working with Ben Mogesa and Dr. Basu making synthetic bio-mimetic compounds. He is seen here making his copper (I) complex with dithione ligands. He is working in the glove box to be able to prevent oxygen from reacting with his compounds because it is filled with nitrogen. After making the compound, he dries it using a vacuum to suck out the liquid solvent and then can use the dried product. He can put it into different solvents and then analyze it using UV-Vis and Cyclic Voltammetry or he can use it dry to analyze it using IR. Ian also used copper (II) in his complex to study a different form of the complex.

Sydney Burkholder the Magnificent!

2010-08-11T10:30:00.014-04:00

I've been working with Sydney for these past two summers and it's certainly been exciting if nothing else. Since Sydney worked upstairs in the pharmaceutical department so I never really saw her work environment. Until this year when I ventured her room. It looked just like our chemistry labs. Looks like all science is just messy.

In this picture, Sydney is pipeting cells and splitting them among 35 mm plates. She's doing this to be able to treat the cells with different concentrations of novel compounds. Once all the plates are treated, Sydney will lyse the cells. This allows her to eventually run a protein assay and a western blot analysis.

Sydney's project involves a very serious problem, Breast Cancer, which is a leading cause of death particularly involving women. She works exclusively with Extracellular signal-regulated kinase 5 (ERK5)an understanding it's role in breast cancer research. Hopefully, advancements in this research can lead to possible therapies in breast cancer.

As you can see, Sydney's work is not only intriguing but important as well. And her work has certainly helped the ongoing progress of breast cancer research. Great job!

Stolen Photo

2010-08-11T08:14:00.003-04:00

I stole this photo from Marissa's camera. You should steal photos from Marissa's camera too, and post them on the blog with an explanation. I'll let Marissa summarize what she is doing in this picture in the comments below.

Interview with Dr. Cascio

2010-08-09T14:05:00.006-04:00

This is my second year at Project Seed and things are relatively the same from the previous year. But there is something different this year. With the addition of another student, another professor also has joined us in Liz's professor Dr. Mike Cascio. He's the only professor that us students don't know about so I figured he'd be the best candidate to interview with.

Dr. Cascio came from Yonkers, New York and graduated from Roosevelt High School. It was a public school, so there wasn't many opportunities such as Project Seed. He even went through hard times including being nearly bankrupted at some point. So he really had to work hard to get what he wanted. And he certainly did that being accepted to Cornell University, a prestigious Ivy League school. He double majored in Chemistry and Biology and received his B.A. from the School of Arts and Sciences.

His interest in Chemistry has always been a focal point in his life. He even had a boyhood fascination with fire and mixing chemicals. Throughout his time at Cornell, he was passionate about chemistry, as well as math and physics. He credits his Intro to Biological Sciences teacher Dr. Charles Keaton, for showing how he can apply his physical chemistry knowledge to biological functions. Ironically, Dr. Keaton is the author of the textbook that he used.

His story of how he arrived at Duquesne was almost a non-story. He and his wife were offered positions at the University of Pittsburgh and he would have accepted the offer. However a colleague of his joined Duquesne's faculty and recommended to him that he should join as well. He applied for the position and loved the unique opportunities and atmosphere that Duquesne is known for. From then on out Dr. Cascio remains a member of Duquesne's faculty. A decision he now knows was a right one.

Currently he and his lab works on the chemistry of proteins at the membrane interface. They look at membrane protein structure and function, and the holding and misfolding of proteins at the membrane surface. Which is shown by his Seed student Liz Thorton, who currently works on the structure and function of the glycine receptors. "He's really nice and dependable and a great professor to work with." Says Liz, who really enjoyed working with Dr. Cascio this summer.

Dr. cascio says his biggest accomplishments in life is having three wonderful children as well of having the ability to balance both his professional and personal life. He says there isn't anything he truly regrets which shows how he puts his own life into perspective. I asked him what his futures entails and he says he wants to continue his research alongside young scientist with the same passion for chemistry as he does. Finally, I wanted to know what advice he had for both current and future Seed kids; "Follow your passion and make certain you enjoy what you are doing."

Dr. Cascio has dedicated his life to his research and his family and been undoubtedly been successful at it. And we will see what more accomplishments Dr. Cascio will achieve in the many more years he will be at Duquesne university.

Dr. Aitken's Blog Challenge

2010-08-06T11:17:00.001-04:00

Post photos of each other working in your lab on your instrument. Be sure you are wearing appropriate PPE.

Dr. Jeffry Madura's Academic Career

2010-08-04T13:09:00.011-04:00

(Click here to view the video of this interview)

Growing up in Transfer, Pennsylvania. Jeffry D. Madura had no idea what he wanted to be when he grew up. Then, in the fifth grade, he started testing soil and the sparks started to fly- he had instantly developed an interest in science. It wasn't long before he dumped the soil to move on to bigger and better things.

As a high school student Jeffry was your average jock, spending his time on the basketball court and the football field at Reynolds High School. "Because there were no computers at the time, it was hard to be a nerd." Jeffry explains, even though he loved biology, chemistry, and physics.

After four years of being a star athlete, Jeffry moved on to Thiel college, where he declared a major of chemistry. He gave up being a star athlete and quit athletics to become a star pupil. There were 4 good faculty members that gave him the love of chemistry he still has today.

Knowing he wanted to continue his education, he tried out Purdue University to get his Ph.D in chemistry. His thesis was on gas phase reactions. Although it may be hard to believe, Jeffry did struggle to pass his qualifying exams. He was given 4 hours to answer 8 questions, an almost impossible task when the subject is physical chemistry. The only thing he regrets is not going as a Post Doc.

It wasn't long before he took on the challenging role as Chair of Duquesne University's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "It was a real learning experience learning to juggle." He explains. It was most rewarding seeing his faculty becoming successful. After 10 years, he stepped down. His philosophy is to get new ideas, new new energy. Now, his goal is to train as many students as possible. He continues to share his gifts and touch almost every student he meets.

Interview with a Grad

2010-08-04T08:38:00.002-04:00

When I interviewed Derrick, I found out he came a long way from his high school in Washington to here at Duquesne. Back in high school, he was like most kids, unsure of what he really wanted to do in life. Then one day, in church his priest showed them a video of molecular biology, and it really grabbed his interest. That was when Derrick decided he wanted to study biochemistry.

So Derrick continued to work through high school, going through hardships like everyone else. Some past regrets were letting his girlfriend distract him from his work, not being able to give back enough to all the people that helped when he needed it most and not socializing more when he had the chance.

After high school Derrick went to a small catholic college in Oregon where he continued working on biochemistry. College was at first a little overwhelming with freedom. That's where he found out that all the times people talk about getting drunk and all those other crazy things they do in college really aren't as great as they sound. Although, while they're not always that great, it doesn't mean you shouldn't go party every once in awhile. It's important to find the balance between having fun and knowing all your work will be done too.

Then the choice came to decide where to go for graduate school. It was between a college in Washington, his home, or Duquesne, a college far away, but with good opportunities. In the end he felt Duquesne calling him and chose to come here. It was different being so far away and in a completely new place, but it was also like an adventure. When you move far away you're on you're own and you miss your friends and your family, but that isn't always bad. It's a little more daring, but it also means you get the chance to be whoever you want to be and just explore. From the west to the northeast is a good change of scenery, too.

Trip to Bayer!

2010-08-03T10:55:00.003-04:00

Today we took a field trip to Bayer. It was actually pretty interesting. We were able to see how bowling balls were made. (which was my favorite part) It was cool to see how these different things in our everyday lives are made. It's not something that everyone gets to see. It's also interesting to see the other side of what goes on in the world considering we're in an area of academia most of the time. It's nice to see the jobs that the people at Bayer do and it's cool to learn about how they got there.

Finally, some results!

2010-08-03T10:47:00.003-04:00

So after 6 weeks of hard work, I got some results out of the numbers that were being stored on the computer. I learned how to extract the numbers, and how to chart them on an excel spreadsheet. What I'm finding in these supplements is really shocking. How could a company not know they're putting things like arsenic and mercury into their supplements?! The numbers and results always give me a little ego boost, because I did all of the work to get those numbers, and it's a nice reward. Sometimes you don't see where the hard work goes, but this time I did. Everybody at the symposium was really impressed with my work, including my principal, Melanie Kerber, and my superintendent Fran Serenka. They were also impressed with the fact that I'm a high school student. All the research is real, and I'm sorry to say but when exploring the symposium posters on my free time, I saw some displays that were worse than those ones of the high school students. What a shame.

Interview With a Grad Student

2010-08-02T20:53:00.007-04:00

Yesterday I sat down with Kim, a grad student in Dr.Aitken's lab, to discuss college, being a grad student, and how she ended up where she is today. We talked about many things, from why she chose chemistry to her fascinations with knowledge as a child. Through talking with her I gained insight into how I should think about college and what I should look for in a career.
When Kim was in first grade she had her first science lab, and that is when she fell in love with it. She was always interested in learning how things worked and how stuff like chairs and phones were made, and by whom. Although she loved science, she also loved teaching, but having a career as a science teacher wasn't very appealing at the time. Growing up with science teachers that wore pocket protectors, and suspenders did not help her opinion of science teachers. To her and her classmates science teachers seemed like big jokes, because all of them wore very unfashionable attire. As she became older she realized not all science teachers have to dress like that, and so Kim became set on being something that would incorporate her two loves, a science teacher. When she was in high school she decided that she wanted to go somewhere close to home, because she's very close to her family, and wanted to have them close. She decided on going to St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa. She went there majoring in education. She soon realized that it's very easy to get caught up in your subject's social groups. When she took classes like Physical chemistry, which was the hardest class for her due to the size of the substance you're working with, she became caught up in the chemistry social group, because they were forced to work together for long hours so socializing with others outside of your subject of study was uncommon. When she finally had the oppurtunity to decide where she wanted to go for grad school it wasn't a difficult decision, because she already knew what she wanted. She picked Duquesne, because of how close it is to her family. Although, deciding where to go was somewhat easy, being a grad was not. She had to learn quickly that not everything was going to work, and after trying something over and over again, you have to stop at some point. Doing so much work on something, and ending up with it being unsuccessful was hard. She said when you become a grad you realize just how naive you were. Her greatest success though was being able to start reseach before college, which did give her some insight for being a grad. Although she loved loved being a grad, because you don't have set hours, she missed the freedom of being an undergrad, and the different people. She regretted not spending enough time on her non chem classes, and that she was shy and didn't ask questions. This is something I can easily relate to, and is one of the reasons talking to her helped so much. Mr. Lucas always says be assertive, now I have someone else pushing me to be assertive too.

Dr. Cavanaugh the Pharmacologist

2010-08-02T15:10:00.008-04:00

Dr. Cavanaugh was just a regular girl growing up in Reading Pennsylvania. She attended Central Catholic High School and took your regular medley of classes including AP English and Chemistry. Her great chemistry teacher led her to want to study chemistry more and delve into the mysteries of the chemistry world.

Dr. Cavanaugh continued her magical journey called school by going to Franklin and Marshall in Lancaster PA. While she had a good time her freshman year, it is something she regrets because of her somewhat relaxed attitude towards school. It was her first time away from home and she wanted to take the time to relish in her newfound freedom. Since then she has realized that you only have one chance to do it right and that is one of her biggest regrets.

Afterwards however she learned how to manage her time more and buckled down to learn. She majored in Chemistry there but with the wisdom and guidance of her Spirit Mentor(most call them "College Advisors") she decided to go to Penn State College of Medicine for Pharmacology in Hershey because of its practical use, medical relevance, and the combination of both chemistry and biology(she didn't choose Penn State for the chocolate though). She then went to get her post-doc at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Now-a-days though she works at Duquesne University where she educates students. Her favorite part is getting to meet students that are like little birds. Students that require her help to grow and to learn but soon after become very capable and are able to survive on their own. Her second greatest accomplishment has to be helping her students to become independent thinkers and help them become ready to tackle gigantic challenges and obstacles. Her greatest accomplishment however has nothing to do with education. Her greatest accomplishment is her daughter.

Carpe Diem

Ian Carroll

Interview!! =)

2010-08-02T11:08:00.006-04:00

So, I decided to interview Liz's grad student, Chelsee Krushaar. Let me say that Liz's lab is very funny and they have soo much fun in there.

Chelsee went to Canon-Macmillan high school and graduated in 2005. She then went to Carlow University for her undergrad and double majored in Biology and Chemistry. She specialized in autopsy technology. She then started at Duquesne.

Chelsee said that during her school life she was a nerd in high school. She was in band (which is awesome! =]) and she was very quiet. She didn't talk to many people. Once she got into college, she opened up a lot more by doing tours at Carlow University. If she could have changed anything, she would have been much more open in high school. I asked her what Canon-Macmillan was like considering it's a very big school and it's very different from where I attend high school. After hearing her opinion, we got into a discussion on opinions about different schools and how their educations differ from one another. Aside from having Chelsee's opinion, I also had some opinions of others in her lab. Chelsee, Tom, Shawn and I discussed the advantages and disadvantages of colleges and their educations. We also talked about the social aspect of college and the advantages and disadvantages of being on campus or commuting from home. Believe it or not, hearing all of their perspectives helped me a little bit.

I asked Chelsee what got her interested in what she does now and she said that there are many reasons. She has always been interested in biology and chemistry. It's something that she has always been good at. She has always been fascinated by the human body and how it works. Another thing that got her interested is that her mother is sick and that got her interested in the human body while she looked at what was wrong with her.

Finally, I asked Chelsee what her future plans and goals were after she was done with school. She said that after school, she would like to go into teaching. She'd like to be a professor at a college.

Field Trips Galore!

2010-07-25T11:39:00.006-04:00

This week, we had two field trips back to back. On Thursday, we went to PPG's Monroeville branch. We were able to see some of the projects they are working on, such as photochromics and Teslin paper. Later, a chemical engineer came to talk to us about different jobs you can have with a chemistry degree, something very helpful to all of us SEED students. It was such a wonderful experience.

On Friday, all of the senior SEED students took a trip to Washington and Jefferson College. One of the admissions counselors talked to us about applying for student aid, and what colleges look for. This is very helpful, as all of us will be applying to colleges in just a few short months. From there, we had a tour guide take us on a walking tour of campus. Sydney and I immediately fell in love with it. Next was our amazing lunch, and finally a tour of the brand new science building, fully equipped with all the newest technology. The trip was great. I now have a new college to consider! and to think I would have never known about Washington and Jefferson if it wern't for Project Seed!

Symposium Stress

2010-07-21T12:48:00.003-04:00

Many Sto-Rox kids are going to be leaving for band camp next week, (actually all the Sto-Rox kids will be leaving for band camp except me). They are really stressed out, because they have to get their posters, and panels finished by this Friday, but I believe in them. At first, I didn't really care, because I still have a week to do my PowerPoint and panels, but yesterday when I started working on my panels I realized that this is a big deal to me, and started feeling the pressure. I'm really sad that the symposium is so soon, and my results aren't turning out how they would if they were right. My lab sent my mutations for sequencing to find out if the mutation worked, and when we received the paper showing our DNA sequence it didn't seem like my mutations worked, but it was hard to tell. We decided to send them back, because they could have worked in the reverse so now I have to wait to find out that. Also, I can't do anymore mutations right now, because we ran out of plates and they didn't come in yet. This is just a bad week for me. Hopefully I will get some good news to put into my symposium panels and Power Point by the end of this week, or at least before the symposium. I also hope the plates come in soon, but who knows. I'm trying to stay positive. as they would say in Japanese, "Ganbatte!!"

Mandatory Blog Challenge. Due August 2nd

2010-07-19T16:30:00.003-04:00

Choose a graduate student or professor and discuss with them their career path and the road they traveled to arrive in their current position. Ask them what they would do differently. Ask them what their greatest successes and failures were along the way. Be insightful and thought provoking. Posts will be judged for depth of content, how well your writing engages the reader, and creativity. Pictures and videos always get you bonus points. This is not just a mandatory challenge, but it is also a big reward challenge.

Trial and Error

2010-07-19T15:01:00.002-04:00

Last week, I found out that all my data was wrong, because I did not check the concentration of my salt box. I later found out that I was adding the wrong number of ions to my salt box. My equation gave me the number 16...there was confusion whether that meant 16 anions and 16 cations, or 8 anions and 8 cations to add to the box. We later found out that it meant 16 of each. Now, I'm back on track. I've equilibrated and minimized 4 boxes, NaCl and KCl 0.2 and 2.0M. Now all we have to do is run them on our super, TeraGrid computer, and I'll finally have some results. (:

Opitmization and Parameterization of IR and GC for Simple Reaction Mixture Analysis in ATRA

2010-07-16T14:26:00.002-04:00

ATRA was discovered in 1937 by Karasch, but had low product yields at the time. Later, Minisci discovered metal catalyzed ATRA through his experiments and found this to have a much higher product yield. ATRA is a process by which carbon-carbon bonds are formed by means of a metal catalyst with products of small molecules that are used to create complex organic compounds and pharmaceuticals. The reason that I'm studying this is to achieve a more efficient way to run this mechanism.

In ATRA an alkyl halide reacts with a copper (l) catalyst to form a primary radical and copper (ll). The radical reacts with an alkene forming a secondary radical which abstracts a halogen atom from copper (ll) to regenerate copper(l) and form a monoadduct. Recent advances in this field have found that addition of a reducing agent can be used to dramatically reduce copper concentrations, making this method more attractive to synthetic chemists. Traditionally, analysis has been conducted via 1H NMR spectroscopy, which is inaccessible to smaller research facilities. I'm studying this mechanism with the application of gas chromatography and infrared spectroscopy to analyze these reactions.

My first week here I spent learning what all I would be doing. This included how to calculate the amounts of how much AIBN, internal standard, alkene, alkyl halide and solvent I would put into my test tubes to run. It was all a bunch of stoichiometry problems that were simple enough once I got the hang of it. Then the next few days were spent learning how to use the gas chromatographer (GC) and read the scans that it spit out. The first thing to do is turn on the gas tanks; first nitrogen, then air, then helium and finally to light the machine. The machine should always be purged before using it, to clean out anything that may have been left inside the column. To do this the GC is set to run at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes, or until the scans look clean. Then the parameters are set for the sample; initial temperature, initial time, amount of degrees to ramp per minute (rate), final temperature, and final time. Sometimes this also includes changing the ramp time. Then the parameters on the integrator are set, which is the machine connected to the GC, and prints out the scans. The only parameters that are changed it the attenuation, which is how much the graph is zoomed in or out of the scan, and the stop time, which is how long the integrator should run for. The stop time is calculated by this formula: finial temp - initial temp / rate + initial time + final time = total time. Then .2 micro liters is injected into the column simultaneously while pressing start on both the GC and the integrator. As the machine runs, the sample moves through the column and the substances in the sample will shoot out of the column around their boiling point, as recorded by different sizes peaks on the integrator scan. Sometimes part of a sample will shoot out of the column at a significant time before or after it's boiling point and add and extra unknown peak to the scan. In that case, another scan is run again. At least two scans of every sample is run to confirm that the scan is quantitative. Though, since the machine is old it doesn't always work right and sometimes time is needed to purge again.

The second week I moved to the infrared spectrometer (IR). This machine measures the bonds in samples. First, a background is always collected before using the machine, so that it can tell the difference between what should be recorded, and what shouldn't. Then two drops of the sample is placed between two salt plates and put into the machine. After the IR runs it displays a spectra of the sample, which it obtained by shooting a photon of light through the sample. The light photon causes the connected atoms to vibrate about their bonds and different bonds absorb different amounts of energy, which are displayed in the spectra. The spectras can be checked against the SDBS database for confirmation.

The experiments we did at first were to check if the two machines were quantitative. On the IR we first ran Octene, Methanol, Acetonitrile, CCl4, Styrene, Methyl Acrylate, and Methyl Methacrylate. Then a mystery sample was made of two samples that I had already ran and were mixed together for me to identify what it was. Looking at the scans that I had already done of our materials and comparing the different peaks in the scans did this. If the peaks matched, it meant that the sample did as well. On the GC I ran all of our starting materials a few times, to check that they always came out at the expected time, in the right amounts. This week we've started running our solutions with AIBN, internal standard, alkene, alkyl halide and solvent through the GC. AIBN is our reducing agent and the reason this is used is because it gives a higher product yield than the other reducing agent, ascorbic acid, even though it's more environmentally friendly. We've ran four different scans all with differing ingredients and all but the first one came out okay, but we've yet to figure out why.

Next week the other IR head might be back, the one that's more quantitative, since the one we have now isn't and I might run some samples on that if it does.

Next week's gonna be rough

2010-07-16T14:19:00.003-04:00

Next week is the last week for me to work on my project before the symposium. I feel like I haven't done that much, but when I look at all my data and scans I sort of wonder where all the time went. I lost my flash drive...which means I might have to redo my first power point, but at least I didn't lose the flash drive with all my data saved on it. My undergrad comes back next week, and that's when I'll probably be locked up in the lab running my experiments all day long. Then I need to finish my poster by Friday at the latest...It's all a tight deadline. At least we got paid today though, and that makes all the hard work worth it.

My Cells Grew!!!

2010-07-16T14:14:00.006-04:00

Recently, I have been very busy, and happy, because my cells grew! Although, I had plated six cells to grow, only one of them grew how they were supposed to. That's okay though, because I'm still happy that I have data. Yesterday, I finally had the chance to do my first miniprep, and received data from sequencing, so I now have results that I can put in my power point to tell everyone about. I'm still not sure if my cells grew with the mutation, but the fact that they grew makes me happy. Now, I will continue to work hard and try to do more mutations, and succeed again!

Joseph Glorioso

2010-07-16T14:10:00.002-04:00

Today we went to listen to a professor talk about his work in microbiology. It was really informative, but I guess not too interesting for me since that's not really a field I'm looking into. Most of it was biology related, but I learned that a lot of scientists will make a stretch to get funding for their research. A lot of the information on the internet isn't always as accurate as scientists make it seem. I also learned that when you get you PhD and start doing your own research, that that's exactly what it is your research. It's all your responsibility to figure out what you're doing, who's doing it with you, what you need, and how to fund all of it. Being in charge is also the good part though, because you do get to make all those choices and you end up being you're own motivation(and boss) and in the end it can lead to a lot of opportunities.

Repetitive

2010-07-16T09:32:00.002-04:00

I kind of feel like I do the same thing every day: run scans on the GC. I guess it's pretty easy, so I shouldn't complain, but it doesn't always work right. At first it was pretty horrendous, but now it's actually okay.

Dr. Aitken Returns

2010-07-16T09:04:00.004-04:00

Yesterday came the return of Dr. Aitken, the person responsible for bringing us here. She was out on maternal leave with the expectant arrival of the new baby (who was really cute). She stopped by for just a few hours to see everyone and it was nice to see her. She says she will be back for the symposium so I better get working to make her proud.

Busy, Busy, Busy

2010-07-15T10:55:00.005-04:00

Things are really starting to roll here. Along with all of our projects we have tons of other things to do. It seems like every day we have some kind of extra thing to do from SEED group meetings every Wednesday(along with our own Lab group meetings at various times) to field trips starting next week to PPG and Washington and Jefferson. It is really exciting though. I can't wait to go to all of these places. It is really nice to get out of the lab every once in a while (even though I enjoy that too).

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman