Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Bridging The Molecular/Material Divide: An Investigation Into The Properties Of Polyesters, Terra Marie M. Jouaneh

Senior Honors Projects

By definition, polymers consist of large molecules composed of small, repeating units called monomers. These monomers give characteristic material properties to polymers, whether they be the melting point, the folding character, or the inherent stability. Many of the objects we encounter on a daily basis are composed of polymers. These polymers may be synthetic, such as the plastic in disposable bags, or natural, like glycogen in the liver. Recent developments in biotechnology have used synthetic polymers in drug delivery, contact lenses, and even organ transplants. Polyesters, in particular, have been utilized pharmacologically due to their biodegradable properties. Understandably, not all …

Nanopore Sensing For Single-Molecule Glycomics, Melissa Morris

Senior Honors Projects

Single-molecule sensing represents the ultimate in chemical sensitivity, but is tremendously challenging to achieve. Larger proteins have a diameter of 10 nm, which is 1/10,000^th the size of a strand of hair, and 1/100,000^th the size of a grain of sand. Because imaging at the nanoscale is difficult and expensive, developing techniques to measure single molecules requires ingenuity, and often relies on the interpretation of electrical signals. So how do nanopores help us measure at the single-molecule level?

A nanopore is simply a nano-sized hole in a membrane or material. In the early stages of nanopore science, biological …

The Characterization Of A New Metabolite From A Trichodesmium Bloom, Kelly M. Mcmanus

Senior Honors Projects

Our laboratory has been investigating blooms of Trichodesmium, a genus of ecologically important, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria, collected from Padre Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Trichodesmium species are an underexplored biological source of cyanobacteria – a taxa that has been shown to produce chemically diverse secondary metabolites. With our focus on the isolation and structure characterization of new bioactive marine natural products, our research group has discovered over 25 new-to-science compounds over the past three years from these blooms. UV and mass spectrometry-guided isolation of Trichodesmium chromatography fractions were utilized to isolate a new metabolite. Isolation of this metabolite was …