Northwestern Chemistry majors, Ethan Brazelton, Julian Novin and Tristan Weng were named this year’s recipients of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute’s most prestigious undergraduate award, the Lambert Fellowship. The program provides mentorship and a generous stipend for sophomore and junior students to conduct research in CLP faculty laboratories. The new fellows join Monica Jones who is currently in her second year of the award and studying new mechanisms for drug delivery in the lab of Regan Thomson.
CLP recently caught up with the newest fellows to learn more about their research projects, reasons for pursuing the fellowship, and future plans.
Ethan Brazelton
Major/Year: Chemistry, Rising Junior
Faculty Mentor: Shana Kelley
Research Project: Structure Switching Molecular Pendulum for Reagentless Small Molecule Detection
Tell us about your research project.
I’m working on a project to create a reagentless non-invasive sensor that can continuously monitor and detect small molecule biomarkers in the body. While I am looking at biomarkers relevant to bipolar disorder, this is a very flexible technology that can achieve more accurate sensing for other chronic conditions as well, such as heart disease, Alzheimer’s, sleep disorders, and more. This technology provides a powerful tool for continuous testing of relevant biomarkers that change regularly and can’t be accurately assessed with infrequent blood draws and expensive lab testing.
One of the driving forces behind this sensor is its design which acts as an inverted pendulum, almost like a grandfather clock. The sensor probe is attached to a gold electrode, and it swings down as a positive voltage is applied to the electrode. We measure the current over time, and when the probe attaches to a target molecule, the additional mass and hydrodynamic radius of the target complex slows down the swinging of the pendulum which can be seen in the current versus time measurement. This summer, my goal is to use a receptor called an aptamer, a short DNA sequence which folds around a specific target molecule, to detect small molecules such as cortisol and serotonin. I hope to use the structure switching capabilities of aptamers to increase drag enough to create more reliable detection.
Why did you apply for the Lambert Fellowship?
When I joined the Kelley lab last November, I started by learning how to conduct baseline tests and in-house procedures. However, I was hoping for a more prolonged engagement with the lab across my time at Northwestern for a more complete research experience. I spoke about applying for grants with my graduate student mentor about The Lambert Fellowship, and we thought that it would offer me a great long-term opportunity. It has given me the resources I need to pursue longer-term projects with more people in the lab and has allowed me to engage with a strong community of students and faculty in CLP involved in research through various programming which has really allowed me to dig deep and immerse myself in the collaborative research environment.
What do you think you’d like to do after graduation?
I would like to pursue a MD/PhD. I’d like to continue to be involved with patient care, but also continue doing research. An MD/PhD offers a good mix of both — you can see how patient care outcomes are affected by research, and you can see how patient care guides the research process for better incorporation into real medical applications.
Julian Novin
Major/Year: Chemistry, Rising Junior
Faculty Mentor: Richard Silverman
Research Project: Synthesis and Evaluation of New Protein Aggregation Inhibitors for the Treatment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
Tell us about your research project.
My work focuses on improving and synthesizing new chemical entities to develop therapeutics for the treatment of ALS. Currently, treatment options for ALS are very limited, offering only symptomatic management with minimal benefits to patients. The goal of my project is to work on improving the activity and pharmacological properties of a family of compounds identified by the Silverman Lab. The compounds decrease the aggregation of proteins, a known hallmark of ALS.
My work involves the synthesis of a library of compounds that will be evaluated for their anti-aggregation capacity in ALS cellular models, while simultaneously improving their pharmacological properties to increase target engagement and bioavailability in vivo.
Why did you apply for the Lambert Fellowship?
The Lambert Fellowship is unique because it allows you to really focus on your work for a long period of time, rather than some other opportunities that only give you one summer or one year’s time for research. This will allow me to really focus on my work over two summers and hopefully have a lot more presented information. I also really liked how strong the CLP community is and all the different events, programs and opportunities for students to learn more about career opportunities or graduate school. Connecting with other students, including older students from last year or recently graduating ones, and different CLP faculty members for advice is extremely valuable.
What do you think you’d like to do after graduation?
I’m leaning towards doing a PhD in chemistry, but I’m still considering medical school. I’m hoping to have a better idea by the end of the summer, but I am leaning towards doing a PhD in research and then I would like to go into something more on the medical side — either medical research or medicinal chemistry.
Tristan Weng
Major/Year: Chemistry, Rising Junior
Faculty Mentor: Teri Odom
Research Project: Enhancing Reepithelialization with Topographical Nano-Bio Interfaces
Tell us about your research project.
The project that I am working on consists of two components, the first part is synthesizing spiky gold nanoparticles on a soft and flexible material and the second part is seeing how cells interact and move on these spiky gold nanoparticles. Tissues tolerate hard materials poorly, leading to an inflammatory response, but hard materials are also crucial for many medical interventions such as optical materials for drug delivery and structural support for biomaterials. So I plan to create a predominantly soft device that maintains the functionality of hard materials to make it more biocompatible.
Current methods of gold nanoparticle synthesis either have issues with synthesis on soft materials and/or scalability, which are things that I hope to overcome this summer. As previous studies have shown that textured surfaces can direct cell migration and remodel the cell’s extracellular matrix, the second part of my project is observing how cells move on and adhere to gold nanoparticles using immunofluorescence targeting collagen and proteins associated with focal adhesions. By understanding how the cells interact with the gold nanoparticles we plan to create a device to increase the rate of reepithelialization by directing cells to move to a wound site and reorganize its extracellular matrix, thus accelerating the wound healing process.
Why did you apply for the Lambert Fellowship?
I liked the fact that the grant is geared towards chemistry students and that it’s for a two-year period. It’s nice to have a community that I’ve taken classes with before and enjoy doing research outside of class. Many of CLP’s research topics are related to medicine and the intersection between chemistry and biology, which I really appreciate not only because I am pre-med, but I also really like chemistry.
The Lambert Fellowship offers more than other undergraduate research grants because you are given the opportunity to meet with other undergraduates who are doing research as well as graduate students who are pursuing their MD or PhD. This grant also pushes us to be better researchers because it allows us to present our research here and at other conferences which I think is a really integral part of the whole research journey.
What do you think you’d like to do after graduation?
After graduation I am planning on pursuing a MD as I love working and interacting with patients. I would still love to do research, but I am unsure if I want to pursue a MD PhD as I do not know if I would be able to fully commit to my research on top of patient care.
About the Lambert Fellowship
The Lambert Fellowship was founded in 2010, and endowed in 2016, by CLP Executive Advisory Board Chairman and Senior Vice President of Research Biology at Genentech, Andrew Chan, MD, PhD (Weinberg). The program is named in honor of Dr. Joseph B. Lambert, the Clare Hamilton Hall Professor of Chemistry. Lambert was Dr. Chan’s advisor in the late 1970’s at Northwestern and helped him succeed as a student; Lambert had a profound impact on Chan’s educational experience.
Top image (left to right): Ethan Brazelton, Monica Jones, Julian Novin and Tristan Weng.
Photos and story by Lisa La Vallee
