MEDI Awards Graduate Fellowships

THE ACS DIVISION of Medicinal Chemistry has awarded graduate fellowship awards to nine students. The awards are given to graduate students entering their third or fourth year of study. Selection is based on evaluation of an original research proposal; the medicinal chemistry content of the proposal; and on a nominee's performance and contributions to the project, academic record, and letters of recommendation.

Each fellowship is sponsored by either the division or a pharmaceutical company and consists of a $24,000 stipend and a $1,000 travel grant to attend the 2009 fall ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C.

Nathaniel Calloway received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an M.S. in chemistry from Cornell University. He is beginning his third year of graduate study at Cornell under Barbara A. Baird. His research project is on calcium signaling in cells.

Jessica Wong received a B.A. in psychology and a B.S. and M.S. in chemistry from the University of California, Davis. She is currently a fourth-year graduate student at UC Davis working under Jacqueline Gervay-Hague. Her research is on the synthesis, docking, and biological evaluation of sialyltranferase and cytidine 5′-monophosphate-sialic acid synthetase enzymes. These compounds are of interest as potential anticancer and anti-inflammatory agents.

Katherine A. Rawls earned a B.S. in math and chemistry from Santa Clara University. She is a fourth-year graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, working under Jonathan A. Ellman. Her research is on the development and application of the substrate activity screening method for the identification of nonpeptidic tyrosine phosphatase inhibitors.

Micah Niphakis earned a B.S. in chemistry from Houghton College. He is a fourth-year graduate student at the University of Kansas working under Gunda I. Georg. His research is focused on the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of non-central nervous system penetrating, water-soluble phenanthropiperidine analogs for the treatment of cancer.

Mary Jean Carroll received a B.S. in biochemistry from Elizabethtown College. She is a third-year graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, working under Andrew Lee. She is studying protein dynamics of dihydrofolate reductase by NMR.

Pamela Chang graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is fourth-year graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, studying under Carolyn Bertozzi. Her research involves the synthesis of small-molecule organic fluorophores that target changes in glycosylation associated with cancer in murine tumor models.

Meredith Hartley earned a B.S. in chemistry from Dartmouth College. She is a third-year graduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology working under Barbara Imperiali. She is investigating the biochemistry of eukaryotic glycosylation in an attempt to discover potential new antibiotic targets and to understand the glycosylation process better.

Anjanette Turbiak received a B.S. and an M.S. in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame. She is a third-year graduate student at the University of Michigan working under Hollis Showalter. She is investigating the synthesis of novel heterocycles as potential anticancer agents, as well as the study of structure-activity relationships through fluorescence polarization and ELISA functional assays.

Rebecca Splain graduated from Hobart & William Smith Colleges with a B.S. in chemistry and a B.A. in English. She is a fourth-year graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, working under Laura L. Kiessling. Her research involves the synthesis of substrates for a glycosyltransferase found in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.