More interns!

I’ve been neglecting this blog a lot lately! It would seem as little or nothing is going on in our lab but it’s quite the opposite, a lot of good stuff is going on and most of the excitement comes from the results obtained by a few more interns.

Alberto and Eduardo came just as the previous group of interns left. They’re both undergrad students in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Universidad de la Cañada in southern Mexico. My good friend, Dr. María del Carmen Hernández, referred them to me to do a stay during their summer vacations. They are taking where the previous interns (Paulina, Eliana, Javier and Daniel) left and have now obtained the interaction energies for five different host-guest aducts for 3-phenyl-1H-[1]bezofuro[3,2-x]pyrazole, a tyrosine III kinase inhibitor, currently under research for the treatment of leukemia, better known to us as GTP. As before, our molecular carriers are a wide selection of functionalized-calix[n]arenes. These calculations turned out to be rather lengthy; they were all performed at the B97D/6-31+G(d,p) level of theory in order to account for dispersion forces in pi-pi interactions between the aromatic rings in both species.

The third recent addition to our lab is Monserrat Enriquez, who is a PhD student under the supervision of my good friend Dr. Eddie López-Honorato (if you haven’t checked his blog on nuclear energy and materials for nuclear reactions containment go now and follow it; encourage him to post more often!). Monserrat will be co-advised by me. Her project lies within the scope of molecular recognition, materials recovery and bioremediation; calculations and simulations will help the experimental team to point the synthesis of sequestrating agents in the right direction, or, at the very least, to have a better understanding of the forces and interactions lying beneath the formation of such complex structures.

Last but not least, Luis Enrique is back with a vengeance! He is determined to finish his study on other tyrosine kinase inhibitor drugs. Luis Enrique is an undergrad Chemistry student here in Toluca at the Autonomous Mexico State University, so he will come on his spare time and work from home every now and then; who knows! maybe he’ll end up with a dissertation by the time he finishes his undergrad studies!

But I’m to be left alone pretty soon, as Alberto and Eduardo will stay for a couple of weeks more and Luis Enrique will be here on his spare time. Monserrat will leave on Friday back to Saltillo in Northern Mexico to continue working on the experimental part of her research while working on her calculations from a distance.

Thanks to them for their invaluable help in the development of our research group, for their enthusiasm and hard work. You are now a part of this lab and its doors will always welcome you back!