Symposium

My symposium experience was alright compared to last year. Last years symposium experience was a lot better. The symposium helps me build confidence in myself to speak in front of other people. Even though I didn't get a lot of visitors this year it was great to be a part of this program again. It helped me learn so much that will help along the road in the future. Even though this is my last year still got one more symposium to make it my best! See you in Philly!

Abstract

Forensic Analysis of Hairs: Identifying Styling Product Residues on Hairs by GC-MS

Weidaw, Chelsea; Wetzel, Stephanie

Department of Chemistry

Duquesne University

            Forensic analysis of hairs is an important crime scene investigative tool. The residues present on hairs found at crime scenes have the potential to increase the information obtained from hair evidence. To help identify these unknown residues on a hair a Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) is used. Hair products were mixed with different solvents such as Acetone, Hexane, Isopropanol, and Methanol. Then these samples were sonicated to extract soluble residues, and then analyzed by the GC-MS.  After looking at these results from the GC-MS, a solvent was chosen and hair samples were collected. Finally, the ability to extract hair products from a single hair and identify the residue was tested.

Blog Challenge #1

This summer I will be continuing on my research from last summer in the forensic lab. The title of my research is Forensic Analysis of Hairs: Identifying Styling Product Residues on Hairs by GC-MS.

Last summer different types of hairsprays were tested in various solvents before residues were actually pulled from hair samples for best possible results. The solvents that the hairsprays were tested in were acetone, hexane, isopropanol and methanol. The methods used for testing were each of the hairsprays were mixed with 2mL of each of the solvents listed above. These samples were then placed into the sonicator 25 minutes. After sonication, samples were each syringe-filtered through 0.2 µm nylon membrane filters into GC-MS vials. The solutions in the vials were then set at different injection temperatures into the GC-MS at 200°C and 250°C. The solvent that showed the best results was isopropanol and the injected temperature that will be used is 250°C.

This summer I will be testing actual hairs to see if the method above with be able to extract hairsprays from a single hair. Four different hairsprays will be tested one by one in students hair. For testing a strand of hair, it will be cut into pieces into a test tube so all possible hairspray residues will be extracted. The pieces are then mixed with 2mL of isopropanol. The test tube is then sealed with parafilm and then sonicated for 20 minutes to an hour. These will be sonicated for two different times to see if the hairsprays will be extracted from the hair more. After being sonicated the samples will be transferred into a different test tube through a pipette without the hairs then syringe-filtered through 0.2 µm nylon membrane filters into another test tube. The solution in the test tube will then be dried out with nitrogen and then 100µm of isopropanol will be put back in the test tube. The solution will finally be transferred into GC-MS vials and be ran in the GC-MS.

Project SEED 2012

Well here I am back again! I am very excited to get started back on my project. The past few days have been a breeze for me because I already knew what I was doing. It was interesting to see how the new SEED students would react over the first couple of days. When I got back to my lab on the second day I seen no familiar faces of the graduates and undergraduates from last year but new undergrads that were very welcoming and excited to work with me this summer in the lab. I hope that I accomplish a lot on my project this year and hopefully get some great finishing results. Even though I have given up my 2nd summer in a row I love the advantages that this program gives me. So with that being said let the summer begin!! :)

Chemistry Live! With Graduate Students, Gavin and Kristen!

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!

Goodbye Project SEED!

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 !

Almost finished !

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.

Blog Challenge #2

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.

Field Trip

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.

as the days go on..

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 a lot of that too.. i hope i can do it..

blog challenge#1

Ooops -_- I forgot about this. But anyway My name is Chelsea Weidaw and I am going to be a junior at Sto-Rox High school. 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 didn't 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. I'm 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. But i am going to be working a lot with the instrument called GC/MS..
Well thats all, let the summer begin :)

First day

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 benefit from many things. This will show me how ready I am for college and to figure out how capable I am of handling things on my own. This will also help me become more comfortable with speaking in front of people because im not that good at it.