Two promising undergraduate researchers, Northwestern undergraduates, Grace Hancock and Shoki Matsushima, were recipients of this year’s Chemistry of Life Processes Institute Undergraduate Summer Scholars Research Program awards.  Each will receive a stipend to spend the summer quarter working in CLP faculty laboratories. We caught up with them recently to learn about their research and what inspired them to spend their summer in the lab.

Grace Hancock
Hometown: Fort Lauderdale. Florida
Major: Chemical Engineering
CLP Faculty Mentor: Danielle Tullman-Ercek
Status: Rising Junior
Research Project: Development of a High-Throughput Analysis Well Plate for Adhesive Proteins Research

What sparked your interest in research?

My first foray into the research world was in high school, when I volunteered at my local university from sophomore through senior year. The research focused on using microbiology to better understand and potentially prevent destructive algal blooms that have spread across my home state of Florida. This experience inspired me to become involved again with research at Northwestern.

Tell us about your research project?

We’re engineering adhesive proteins that are able to adhere underwater, inspired by mussels and clams. It’s bio-inspired design; this idea that nature has had millions of years of evolution to achieve this goal of an underwater adhesive. Our goal is to build off those proteins and enhance them for stronger performance.

I’m designing a new type of well plate so that we can process these samples much more efficiently. This contribution to the project is focused on improving the process of protein engineering as a whole. One step of the process is cleaning the protein samples before analysis. This preparation is often performed one sample at a time. But for us to replicate evolution, we need to work with many samples simultaneously. I’m building and testing this new type of well plate to clean hundreds of samples at once, rather than one at a time. This will make the entire process much simpler and more efficient.

What do you think you’d like to do after graduation?

I’ve been considering graduate school. In this case, the CLP Summer Scholars program is an amazing opportunity to prepare me for that and gain experience in something similar to what I hope to be doing in the future.  I’m also considering going into industry focusing more on chemical engineering.

Watch Grace explain why she chose to spend her summer as a CLP Summer Scholar:

Shoki Matsushima
Hometown: Tokyo, Japan
Major: Chemistry
Faculty mentor: Julia Kalow
Status: Rising Sophomore
Research Project: Using Donor-Acceptor Stenhouse Adducts Photoswitchable Dynamic Crosslinkers in Hydrogels     

What sparked your interest in research?

I started doing research activities when I was in middle school. It was a super basic activity synthesizing artificial rubies where you have a super torch and mix different ingredients. We didn’t succeed that much, but I had a good experience and began thinking about all the various cycles of experiments whether or not they fail. At first, I considered pursuing international relations, but I realized that chemistry was never boring. I could do it for 48 hours without stopping. It was my passion.

Tell us about your research project?

My research is in the Kalow Lab. When I was in high school in Japan, my interest in organic chemistry grew by interning at a lab that does synthetic chemistry. At Northwestern, I wanted to conduct interdisciplinary studies with concepts of basic and applied science in a single project. These thoughts and experiences led to my interest in research by Professor Kalow. Kalow lab conducts interdisciplinary studies related to polymers such as discovering new dynamic crosslinkers and networks to control the viscoelastic behavior of materials. I’m working on using molecules called Donor-Acceptor Stenhouse Adducts (DASAs) as crosslinkers in polar polymer networks. What’s special about this molecule is that it can switch on and off using visible light and control the stiffness of the material.

This research could have multiple applications. The materials that I’m working on could be applied as a material for mimicking an environment for stem cell differentiation studies. It is known that cellar functions such as migration and differentiation are highly influenced by environment viscoelasticity. Using DASAs as a hydrogel allows researchers to study how a cell behaves when a material’s stiffness changes over time by using visible light. Another impact is the recyclability of products. Most stiff plastics or polymers that we use in real life are not recyclable, but if we could control between solid and liquid phases, we could control the properties of the material and make it recyclable.

What do you think you’d like to do after graduation?

I want to go to graduate school and attain my PhD after graduating from Northwestern. As a researcher, I am considering working in academia as an organic chemist. Currently, there are not many young scientists in Japan who are trying to study abroad for PhD. Also, not many people are willing to pursue an academic career as well. I want to share my experience studying in Northwestern and pursuing PhD in the future to encourage more students to earn higher degrees.

Watch Shoki explain why he chose to spend his summer as a CLP Summer Scholar:

Photos, video and story by Lisa La Vallee