Mentor: Hening Lin
Education:
University of Minnesota Duluth – B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry, 2017 (Magna Cum Laude)
Awards and Honors
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship – Honorable Mention 2018
- University of Minnesota Duluth – Casmir Ilenda Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research 2017
- UMD Award in Inorganic Chemistry 2017
- UMD Swenson Family Foundation Scholarship 2016
- UMD Peterson Memorial Scholarship 2015
- UMD Ballou Scholarship 2015
- UMD Undergraduate Research Fellowship 2015-16
- UMD Dean’s List 2013-2017
Research Experience:
- University of Minnesota Duluth – Dr. Venkatram Mereddy, 2015-2017
Organic synthesis. I synthesized novel VEGF/PDGF inhibitors and tested their biological activity as anticancer agents.
Current Research Activities:
My research seeks to identify novel protein-protein interactions to better understand the human proteome. In addition to small molecule messengers, proteins relay signals through direct contact. Cross-linking interacting proteins with a molecular probe followed by mass spectrometry is a quick and accurate method to identify such interactions. However, when applied on a proteomic scale, many cross-linked peptides go undetected as their signals are lost in the noise of unlinked proteins. Currently I am working to develop novel cross-linking probes that contain a removable purification tag to allow for enrichment of cross-linked proteins prior to MS analysis. These probes will allow for signal enhancement while decreasing the number of false positive hits detected using the currently available probes.