Beloit College Magazine
Beloit College Magazine
Spring 2001 Contents
Departments
Features
- Do You Do What You Say You Do?
- Renewed Spirit Marks Inauguration Day
- On the Trail of Roy Chapman Andrews
- A Hands-on Approach to History
- Chalk One Up for Student-Faculty Research
- The Writing is On the Wall
- A Touch of Gold
- A Beloit and the Peace Corps: Adventures in Service
Contact Us:
Beloit College Magazine
700 College Street
Beloit, WI 53511-5595
608-363-2215 | 608-363-2870 FAX: 608-363-2615
belmag@beloit.edu
Chem Students Synthesize Success
The décor of the chemistry laboratory in room 416 of Chamberlin Hall has been transformed over the past three years. Where it once had plain, off-white concrete block walls framing the black benchtops, it now sports a colorful mural, the “O-Chem Wall O’ Fame,” commemorating the hard work of a select group of chemistry students.
Each of these students has completed a multi-step organic chemistry (O-Chem) synthesis
project, i.e., each one created a new substance from readily available starting materials.
Among other things, students have prepared polymers, light-emitting molecules, and
biologically active substances.
The Wall of Fame is the first thing new students notice when they enter the laboratory. It is there that a challenge is posed: If they learn well and work hard, perhaps at the end of the year their names will be added to the roster of the O-Chem Wall O’Fame.
Nicole Burton’01, a biochemistry major, prepared luminol, a substance that emits light when mixed with hydrogen peroxide. (It is used by forensic scientists to detect blood stains.) Upon completion of her multi-step synthesis, she gave a demonstration to her classmates. The lights dimmed, and Nicole mixed her compound with peroxide in a glass funnel, immediately generating a bright blue light. It was dramatic proof that her synthesis had been completed, and now her name is the first under the structure of that molecule.
Kathyrn Stettler’02, a chemistry major, was very interested in the anti-cancer drug Tamoxifen®. She researched its structure and synthesis and spent hours in the laboratory performing the required chemical reactions and tedious purification steps. Finally, she placed a small sample of her hard-won crystalline substance in a test tube and ran the crucial diagnostic experiment, NMR (the chemistry equivalent of the medical tool known as magnetic resonance imaging or MRI). The results confirmed what she had hoped: She was the first student at Beloit to prepare Tamoxifen®.
In total, 28 students’ names are displayed on the Wall O’Fame, each name linked to one of 14 unique molecule illustrations. Today, more students are working on projects that they hope will result in similar classroom recognition. As they leave individual marks on the chemistry department, so too, do their real-world experiences leave marks on them. The students have not only assembled new molecules, but expanded their understanding of organic chemistry.
—By Charles Abrams
Instructor in Chemistry
Email:
Charles Abrams - Instructor in Chemistry
| home | pubaff@www.beloit.edu | |