Four B.U. Students Give Papers in Germany: Patrick Cappillino Wins Award for Oral Presentation
Patrick Cappillino (left), a chemistry graduate student at Boston University, was recognized for his presentation at the 10th Young Scientists Conference on Chemistry, which was held at the University of Rostock, Germany, March 27-29, 2008. Cappillino, who anticipates receiving his Ph.D. at the end of the year, received the third place award for his oral presentation, “Iron Compounds with fac-N2O1, cis-N2O2, and N2O3 Donor Ligands as Models of the Structure and Reactivity of Mononuclear Non-heme Iron Oxygenase Active Sites,” in which he described his doctoral research in the laboratory of Professor John Caradonna.
In addition to Cappillino, the students from B.U. in the NESACS delegation included Gülbenk Anarat (graduate student with Prof. Caradonna, “Kinetics, Mechanisms, and Active Site Structures of Truncated and Full-length Phenylalanine Hydroxylase”), Adam Schell (undergraduate student with Prof. John Porco, “Studies Toward the Synthesis of Epidithiodiketopiperizine Natural Products”), and Lynell Skewis (graduate student with Prof. Björn Reinhard, “Spermidine Modulated Ribonuclease Activity Probed by RNA Plasmon Rulers”). Among those accompanying the NESACS delegation was Emeritus Prof. Morton Hoffman.
The conference, which was organized by the Jungchemikerforum (JCF) of the German Chemical Society (GDCh), was attended by almost 400 students from more than 20 nations, including the group of three undergraduates and nine graduate students from NESACS, who traveled in the exchange program of the Education Committee and the Younger Chemists Committee. A total of 27 oral and 216 poster presentations were given.
In addition to the B.U. students, the NESACS delegation included Koyel Bhattacharyya (undergraduate, MIT), Carl Christianson (graduate student, Boston College), Brett Fors (graduate student, MIT), Wendy Iskenderian (graduate student, MIT), Raymond Moellering (graduate student, Harvard University), Jolene Schuster (graduate student, Dartmouth College), Shuyu Wang, (undergraduate student, Harvard University), and Ka-Lo Yeh (graduate student, MIT). Wang was one of ten students to be honored for the exceptional quality of their poster presentations.
Accompanying the students in addition to Hoffman were Mike Strem (Strem Chemicals), Ruth Tanner (University of Massachusetts Lowell), Bob Lichter (Merrimack Consultants), and Laila Dafik (Tufts University).
This year’s trip to Germany marks the fifth occasion of a visit by a delegation from NESACS to the Frühjahrssymposium; previous exchanges took place in 2002 (Aachen), 2003 (Dresden), 2005 (Berlin), and 2006 (Konstanz). In 2001, 2004, and 2007, delegations of German graduate students visited Boston. The next Frühjahrssymposium will be held in Essen at the end of March 2009, and students from NESACS will again participate.
Photos (by M.Z. Hoffman)