What a better way to kick off a new research year than with four new students? At the end of last year, four wonderful people joined the group - each working in a different direction within our research program:

1. John Watson began his internship in mid-November, taking on the group’s new topic: “Thermodynamic properties, binding, and stability of protein complexes with glycosaminoglycans elucidated by nano differential scanning fluorimetry.” His goal is to understand how complex formation between proteins and polyelectrolytes can be quantitatively described using a toolbox of spectroscopic techniques, including fluorescence spectroscopy, nanoDSF, circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, and dynamic light scattering (DLS).

2. Bohee Gong, also starting her first internship as part of her Master’s program, joined another brand-new group project: “Lignin-NH₂ and lignin/chitosan hydrogel design in carbonic acid solutions under high CO₂ pressure.” Bohee has already begun exploring the macromolecular conformations of lignin, chitosan, and their mixtures in carbonic-acid solutions under high CO₂ pressure (300 atm!) using AFM microscopy. The next step will be building real hydrogels and sponges using different crosslinking strategies.

3. Prathiba Yellapragada joined the group for an internship on “Molecular patterns and interactions in mucus-like hydrogel systems elucidated by EPR spectroscopy.” She’s in a lucky position here, because the project is strongly supported by our PhD student Polina. Prathiba has already started tackling the (not-so-trivial) EPR method and is preparing to take the next steps toward understanding molecular processes that can be probed using our newly developed polymer-conjugated spin labels.

4. And finally, our long-term addition: Eduardo Alonso, who chose our group for his Master’s thesis. Eduardo is brave enough to push forward a particularly challenging topic: “Protein structural and functional stability in water saturated with CO₂ under high pressure.” His toolkit already includes CD spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and DLS to characterize protein changes in aqueous environments under high CO₂ pressure. He has started working on multiple directions at once: investigating how the kosmotropic character of carbonic acid influences protein folding, exploring whether enzymatic reactions can be carried out in carbonic-acid solutions under high pressure, and the possibility to create mucin/chitosan composites in such media.

   Good luck to all of you! We are very happy to have you on board!