ACS, NSF Support German-U.S. Student Exchange

ACS has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site to facilitate exchange of undergraduate chemistry students between the U.S. and Germany. ACS will join with the German Academic Exchange Service's Research Internships in Science & Engineering (RISE) program to orchestrate this summer's pilot program.

U.S. undergraduates participating in this program will conduct research in Germany and present the results of their work at the fall 2007 ACS national meeting. ACS will provide participants with predeparture orientation, German language instruction, and travel grants. The program also will match German undergraduate students with U.S. chemistry REU sites.

Following are the recipients of the ACS-RISE scholarships and the titles of their research projects.

Heidi A. Arjes of Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, will study "RNAi-Related dsRNA-Protein Complexes Investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy" with Nils Anspach at the University of Kassel in the laboratory of Wolfgang Nellen.

Emily S. Bartlett of Cornell University will seek "An Innovative Approach toward Artifical Bilin," under the direction of Robin Krüger at the University of Marburg in the laboratory of Martin Broering.

Kartoa Chow of Cornell University will conduct an "Evaluation of Natural Variation in Gene Expression among the Normal Population with a Further Focus on the Mitochondrial Genes & Enzyme Activity" with Divya Mehta at the GSF National Research Center for Environment & Health in the laboratory of Holger Prokisch and Thomas Meitinger.

Louis N. Ciardulli of the University of Florida will work on the "Development of Carbene-Catalyzed Intramolecular Cycloadditions" with Sabrina Liebehentschel at the University of Cologne in the laboratory of Axel Jacobi von Wangelin.

Christopher Gottfried of Purdue University will study the "Characterization of Human Breast-Cancer-Derived Epithelial Cells" with Catharina Bertram at Hannover Medical School in the laboratory of Ralf Hass.

Shauna M. Paradine of Albion College, Albion, Mich., will study the "Synthesis & Photophysical Characterization of Hypervalent Iodine Derivatives Bearing Carbazole or Indolocarbazole Moieties" with Norma Wrobel at the University of Mainz in the laboratory of Bernhard Witulski.

Bryan A. Rolfe of Arizona State University will conduct an "Evaluation of Ionic Liquids for Purification of Biochemicals by Extraction" with Francesca Santangelo at the University of Dortmund in the laboratory of Andrzej Górak.

Vanessa C. Valarezo of the College of St. Elizabeth, Morristown, N.J., will attempt the "Isolation & Characterization of New Antibiotic Compounds from Fungi" under the direction of Anja Schüffler at the University of Kaiserslautern in the laboratory of Timm Anke.

Emily A. Voigt of Kansas State University will study the "Production of Heterologous Proteins by means of the Recombinant Moss Physcomitrella patens in Photobioreactors" with Florian Lehr at the University of Karlsruhe in the laboratory of Clemens Posten.

Kevin M. Yehl of the University of South Carolina will study the "Synthesis of Anion-Binding Capsules Using Olefin Metathesis" with Thomas Fiehn at the University of Kaiserslautern in the laboratory of Stefan Kubik.