Hello, Friend and Science Supporter!
January 2, 2006 greeted Oak Crest with a wonderful surprise: a front page article in the Pasadena Star-News about Oak Crest’s innovative work with local community college students. (link to article)
We continue to sponsor students from
France
this year with the addition of Jerome Stihle and Alexandre Graet to the Oak Crest student body, which at current count numbers thirteen. Several students completed their projects successfully this summer. Two will be continuing their educations in master’s degree programs in chemistry and biochemistry. Three will be returning to Oak Crest during breaks from college this winter.
In April our new part-time Development and Communications Manager, Sayuri D. Hanna, joined Oak Crest to start a foundation relations department and to increase Oak Crest’s visibility in the community.
On November 11, Oak Crest made the front page of the Pasadena Star-News again! Supported by a major three-year grant to Oak Crest from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Research Experience for Undergraduates students receive a stipend for their 20 hour a week commitment over the course of the 20-week program, held each fall and spring. The program is the first of its kind in the nation to focus exclusively on community college students. (link to article)
We gratefully welcome Vulcan Materials Company to the Oak Crest family as a new major donor. Our students enjoyed a special tour of their Irwindale facility this fall. Special thanks also go to Amgen Corporation for its continued generous support (learn how you can support Oak Crest).
And…the exciting science at Oak Crest continues!
Dr. John Moss and Dr. Sheng Wu have together continued building the microlaser for the aerosol monitor project that will eventually act as an early warning system to warn miners of hazardous particulate matter in the air. Dr. Moss’ and his students’ chemical molecular recognition projects will enable the quick and cost-effective detection of water pollutants using a method called lifetime fluorescence detection. Professor Grady Hanrahan at
California
State
University
,
Los Angeles
is co-mentoring one of these projects and making critical research instrumentation available for the project. And Dr. Moss and Professor Michael Hoffmann at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are co-mentoring a student project designed to help mitigate global warming by using semiconductors and light energy (photocatalysis) to convert carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into useful organic molecules.
Several of Dr.
Marc Baum
's students have focused on environmental microbiology, specifically on investigating bacterial communities on solid supports called "biofilms" (dental plaque is an example of a biofilm) with an emphasis on the organization of three-dimensional structures within these extraordinary architectures. This knowledge could have tremendously wide applications, ranging from new bioremediation methods to saving hearing in people with antibiotic-resistant ear infections. Dr. Paul Webster at the House Ear Institute has lent his expertise with electron microscopy to the project and has made his facility available to us. Another of Dr. Baum’s student environmental microbiology projects examines the ability of bacteria to turn raw materials into crystals and other interesting and useful products.
Dr. Baum also continues his air pollution studies by mentoring student projects that examine car exhaust for previously unmeasured toxic pollutants such as hydrogen cyanide, which can be deadly even in small concentrations. Dr. Pamela Eversole-Cire at
Pasadena
City
College
is helping to co-mentor one of the air pollutant projects.
Oak Crest faculty member Dr. Tom Smith’s biotechnology start-up, Auritec Pharmaceuticals, won a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop and test a sustained release formulation of nevirapine, a drug that could help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in breastfeeding infants in
Africa
. A significant portion of the work will be conducted at Oak Crest. Other of Dr. Smith’s Oak Crest student projects include work with drugs that treat schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease. Preliminary work has begun on use of the drug delivery technology to treat malaria and Meniere’s disease, an inner-ear condition.
With gratitude for the continued encouragement of our many friends and supporters, Oak Crest looks forward to another year of incredible scientific research and student mentoring in 2007.
Best wishes from the Oak Crest family
to you and your loved ones for 2007!
