The 22nd annual 3rd-year Graduate Student Research Symposium organized by the Department of Chemistry was held on June 1, 2023. Nick Kreofsky and Nathan Rackstraw presented their research at the symposium. On the same day, Kaylee Barr and Punarbasu Roy presented their research at the 2023 annual Industrial Partnership for Research in Interfacial and Materials Engineering (IPRIME) meeting. The IPRIME meeting was held May 30 – June 1, 2023, and cohosted by the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. See below for information on their research presentations.
Photo (left to right): Nicholas Kreofsky, Kaylee Barr, Punarbasu Roy, and Nathan Rackstraw.
Nick
Research Presentation Title
Cinchona Alkaloid Polymers Demonstrate Highly Efficient Gene Delivery Dependent on Stereochemistry, Methoxy Substitution, and Length
Summary
Nicholas’ research focuses on the utilization of cinchona alkaloid natural products to create highly efficient polymers for nucleic acid delivery. Nucleic acid therapies are a rapidly developing field of medicine with the potential to treat, cure, and/or prevent a multitude of diseases. To enable these treatments to reach their fullest potential, effective, scalable delivery vehicles for the genetic material must be discovered. Quinine and other cinchona alkaloids are an attractive target towards this end as they can more effectively bind and deliver genetic material owing to their ability to bind via both electrostatics and intercalation. Current work focuses on evaluating structure-activity relationships for cinchona alkaloid polymers to better understand their efficacy.
Kaylee
Information is forthcoming.
Punarbasu
Research Presentation Title
Enhancing pDNA Delivery with Hydroquinine Polymers by Modulating Structure and Composition
1) Describe the opportunity or problem that you are focusing on for your research and its relevance.
Punarbasu develops novel quinine-based polymers that are tailored for gene delivery applications.
2) Describe your current research and how it will impact, benefit, or advance the identified opportunity or problem.
Punarbasu’s research is part of the Reineke Group’s continuous push towards developing polymers that are highly capable of delivering genes inside cells, which is a crucial bottleneck for the advancement of gene therapy.
Nathan
Research Presentation Title
Highly Efficient Etherification of Cellulose with Glycidol in a Heterogeneous Slurry
1) Describe the opportunity or problem that you are focusing on for your research and its relevance.
Nathan designs processes for cellulose functionalization that are more efficient and less hazardous than the industry standards.
2) Describe your current research and how it will impact, benefit, or advance the identified opportunity or problem.
Nathan and Jaeheon Kim, a postdoc in the Reineke Group, performed an in-depth study of the patented cellulose etherification process and identified the most important reaction parameters, which allowed them to design new cellulose ethers for the personal care industry.
