Summer 2013 Research Overview

REU student participants will partake in one of many potential research projects offered by our research-active faculty members. The Boise State REU program attempts to convey our belief that there is much more to being a scientist than the completion of experiments in a laboratory. We attempt to involve students in the identification of problems, generation of hypotheses, design of experiments, interpretation of data, reporting of results, and collaboration with other researchers.

Click on any of the names below to learn more about potential REU research projects.

Eric Brown (Bioinorganic Chemistry)
The focus of our research is to provide fundamental insight into the structure and function of metalloenzymes using a synthetic modeling approach

Ken Cornell (Biochemistry)
My research focuses on the characterization of proteins and metabolic processes in pathogenic bacteria and parasites that are potential targets for the development of new antibiotics.

Jeffrey Habig (Viral Protemics & Evolutionary Modeling)
Our current research efforts aim to isolate and purify virus particles (HBV) for analysis by mass spectrometry. We seek to identify and characterize cellular proteins contained within the infectious particles in search of novel antiviral targets and to better understand host-virus interactions. We are also using computer modeling and evolutionary search to explore the regenerative properties of the flatworm, planaria.

Jeunghoon Lee (Materials Chemistry)
Our research focuses on nanoparticles, with the intent to 1) accomplish their synthesis with high degree of architectural control, 2) investigate their fundamental physical and optical properties, and 3) facilitate their assembly into functional structures.

Owen M. McDougal (Bioorganic Chemistry)
Research interests include the use of modern spectroscopic and computational methods to study marine neurotoxins, chemotherapeutic steroidal alkaloids, and organophosphate degradation.

Rajesh Nagarajan (Biochemistry)
Biofilms produced by P.aeruginosa have been implicated in various diseases including meningitis, cystic fibrosis and pneumonia. In an effort to design inhibitors that prevent the formation of biofilms in P. aeruginosa, we are currently working on developing chemical tools to understand the specificity of the language spoken by P. aeruginosa and other related AHL synthesizing bacteria.

Don Warner (Organic Chemistry)
Our current research efforts aim to prepare and elucidate the mechanism by which synthetic aziridinomitosenes kill cancer cells. We also intend to identify the molecular structure of the DNA-aziridinomitosene adduct and investigate the properties required to induce DNA binding.