Undergraduate
Three Saint Michael's math students are creating new DNA nanostructure designs in grant-funded summer research project
A sophomore, a junior and a senior get to go "cutting edge research"
Contact Information:
Buff Lindau, Public Relations
802.654.2536
blindau@smcvt.edu
A sophomore, a junior and a senior at Saint Michael's College have in common their mathematics expertise. The three students are spending their summer in a lab doing research developing strategies to design DNA nanostructures. Dan Lewis of Pleasant Point, N.J., Jacob Girard of Adams, Mass., and Andrew Gilbert Potsdam, N.Y., each received $3,200 summer research grants and are working with Saint Michael's Associate Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Joanna Ellis-Monaghan to develop "strategies for self-assembling
DNA nanostructures with rigidity constraints."
"These are really good students who are producing raw data for my own research," Professor Ellis-Monaghan said. "They develop preliminary theorems ... they are sharp, talented and have good geometric intuition which is as important sometimes as the technical tools. And they get to do cutting edge research," she said, "that is needed and useful in other fields."
"It's a chance to work on math that hasn't been created yet," the professor said. There's no text book, no list of directions, "no back of the book."
Student researchers:
Daniel Lewis, a senior mathematics major, son of William and Mary Lewis of Point Pleasant, N.J., is funded by a NASA-EPSCoR Student Mentoring Grant from the Vermont Space Grant consortium, a program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Lewis, who graduated from Point Pleasant Borough High School before coming to Saint Michael's, is considering graduate school after college. He's also planning to play some more rugby during his senior year.
Andrew Gilbert, a junior mathematics and classics double major, son of Andrew and Mary Gilbert of Potsdam, N.Y., is funded by the Vermont Genetics Network on a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Gilbert graduated from Parishville-Hopkinton Central School before coming to Saint Michael's. He plays the trumpet in the Saint Michael's Wind and Jazz Ensembles.
Jacob Girard, a sophomore biology major, son of Joseph Girard of North Adams and Sharon Simon-Girard of Adams, Mass., is funded by the Vermont Genetics Network on a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Girard, who graduated from Hoosac Valley High School before coming to Saint Michael's, is planning to go to medical school after college. He plays trombone in the Saint Michael's Jazz Band, and participates in the Saint Michael's Ski and Snowboard Club.
DNA Nanostructures
These students are working on creating the most streamlined and therefore economical DNA structures, because such structures are used in a number of fields. Tailored just right, DNA structures can be used for targeted drug delivery or for building computers which use DNA properties to solve problems with great speed.
The three researchers are developing various DNA structures aiming all the while to minimize the number of components involved, thereby reducing cost and shortening time-consuming processes. In this way they enable the medical world or the computer world to use more efficient DNA structures in their work.
Because extra material forms in the process of synthesizing DNA, the researchers need to design structures in which the unwanted material is easy to remove. They also have to pay attention to geometric constraints inherent in the structure of the molecules of the DNA. So they are constantly creating new designs, altering and testing them, and assessing their results with the team and with their professor.
Professor's Description
Professor Ellis-Monahan described the summer project this way: Student researchers "experience firsthand essential aspects of collaborative applied work, including participating in critical dialogs between theorists and practitioners to develop and refine usable models, researching existing techniques, brainstorming ideas, developing the mathematical formalism for physical intuition, and painstakingly documenting code for future use."
Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.
Photo caption: Saint Michael's math research students, left to right, Andrew Gilbert, Jacob Girard, and Dan Lewis
Buff Lindau, Public Relations
802.654.2536
blindau@smcvt.edu
A sophomore, a junior and a senior at Saint Michael's College have in common their mathematics expertise. The three students are spending their summer in a lab doing research developing strategies to design DNA nanostructures. Dan Lewis of Pleasant Point, N.J., Jacob Girard of Adams, Mass., and Andrew Gilbert Potsdam, N.Y., each received $3,200 summer research grants and are working with Saint Michael's Associate Professor of Mathematics, Dr. Joanna Ellis-Monaghan to develop "strategies for self-assembling DNA nanostructures with rigidity constraints."
"These are really good students who are producing raw data for my own research," Professor Ellis-Monaghan said. "They develop preliminary theorems ... they are sharp, talented and have good geometric intuition which is as important sometimes as the technical tools. And they get to do cutting edge research," she said, "that is needed and useful in other fields."
"It's a chance to work on math that hasn't been created yet," the professor said. There's no text book, no list of directions, "no back of the book."
Student researchers:
Daniel Lewis, a senior mathematics major, son of William and Mary Lewis of Point Pleasant, N.J., is funded by a NASA-EPSCoR Student Mentoring Grant from the Vermont Space Grant consortium, a program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Lewis, who graduated from Point Pleasant Borough High School before coming to Saint Michael's, is considering graduate school after college. He's also planning to play some more rugby during his senior year.
Andrew Gilbert, a junior mathematics and classics double major, son of Andrew and Mary Gilbert of Potsdam, N.Y., is funded by the Vermont Genetics Network on a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Gilbert graduated from Parishville-Hopkinton Central School before coming to Saint Michael's. He plays the trumpet in the Saint Michael's Wind and Jazz Ensembles.
Jacob Girard, a sophomore biology major, son of Joseph Girard of North Adams and Sharon Simon-Girard of Adams, Mass., is funded by the Vermont Genetics Network on a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Girard, who graduated from Hoosac Valley High School before coming to Saint Michael's, is planning to go to medical school after college. He plays trombone in the Saint Michael's Jazz Band, and participates in the Saint Michael's Ski and Snowboard Club.
DNA Nanostructures
These students are working on creating the most streamlined and therefore economical DNA structures, because such structures are used in a number of fields. Tailored just right, DNA structures can be used for targeted drug delivery or for building computers which use DNA properties to solve problems with great speed.
The three researchers are developing various DNA structures aiming all the while to minimize the number of components involved, thereby reducing cost and shortening time-consuming processes. In this way they enable the medical world or the computer world to use more efficient DNA structures in their work.
Because extra material forms in the process of synthesizing DNA, the researchers need to design structures in which the unwanted material is easy to remove. They also have to pay attention to geometric constraints inherent in the structure of the molecules of the DNA. So they are constantly creating new designs, altering and testing them, and assessing their results with the team and with their professor.
Professor's Description
Professor Ellis-Monahan described the summer project this way: Student researchers "experience firsthand essential aspects of collaborative applied work, including participating in critical dialogs between theorists and practitioners to develop and refine usable models, researching existing techniques, brainstorming ideas, developing the mathematical formalism for physical intuition, and painstakingly documenting code for future use."
Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President John J. Neuhauser, is identified by the Princeton Review as one of the nation's Best 368 Colleges. A liberal arts, residential, Catholic college, Saint Michael's is located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top college towns and less than two hours from Montreal. As one of only 270 institutions nationwide with a prestigious Phi Beta Kappa chapter on campus, Saint Michael's has 2,000 full-time undergraduate students, some 500 graduate students and 200 international students. In recent years Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Science Foundation and other grants, and Saint Michael's professors have been named Vermont Professor of the Year in four of the last eight years. The college is currently listed as one of the nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges in the 2009 U.S. News & World Report rankings.
Photo caption: Saint Michael's math research students, left to right, Andrew Gilbert, Jacob Girard, and Dan Lewis
