HARTFORD, Conn. – Neena Chakrabarti, ’09, one of 25 scientists who presented their work in the form of a poster at the 4th International Symposium on Bioorganometallic Chemistry, won the top prize in the poster competition. The symposium was held in mid-July at the University of Montana in Missoula, and the poster competition was co-sponsored by the event organizers and Elsevier Publishing.

 

The conference brought together 70 researchers from Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. The focus of the conference was the biological properties of molecules that have organic molecules tethered to metal atoms.

 

Chakrabarti, who is majoring in chemistry, was one of only two undergraduates to attend the meeting. She is from Rockville, Maryland. While at Trinity, Chakrabarti has distinguished herself academically, twice winning Faculty Honors and also the Chemical Rubber Company Award. She attended the conference along with Professor Timothy Curran of the Chemistry Department.

 

In recognition of Chakrabarti’s work on peptides, a certificate signed by both the chairman of the conference and the regional editor of the Journal of Organometallic Chemistry was presented to her. She also received a cash prize of $150, which she is donating to Trinity’s Chemistry Department in honor of Professor Lisa Nestor, who was Chakrabarti’s freshman lab instructor. Nestor passed away in July 2007.

 

“The most exciting thing about winning the award was how unexpected it was,” said Chakrabarti. “The conference was comprised of professors, grad students and post-docs and I was one of two undergrads. So I was completely shocked when I found out I had won.”

 

Chakrabarti’s poster was a 4-foot by 3-foot sheet of paper that presented the results of her work. Her research involved preparing peptides (short pieces of protein) and cross-linking two sites on the peptide to metal tungsten. The crosslink using the tungsten is meant to constrain the peptides to specific three-dimensional shapes. Because the biological activity of a peptide is dependent on its three-dimensional shape, the peptide-tungsten conjugates have potential use in determining the relationship between three-dimensional structures and biological activity for bioactive peptides.

 

Until recently, Trinity researchers were the only ones studying peptide-tungsten conjugates. However, the College’s success with these molecules has spurred interest among other researchers, according to Curran.