Moore Alumni Receive 2015 Cottrell Scholar Awards

Date
07/01/15

Jennifer Heemstra (PhD Moore, 2005) and Aaron Palmer Esser-Kahn (Postdoc, Moore, 2009-2011) were selected to receive prestigious 2015 Cottrell Scholar Awards. The Cottrell Scholar program provides the very best early career teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy with significant funding for research and enhanced possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration.

 

Jennifer HeemstraHeemstra is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Utah.
Excerpt from Cottrell Scholars web site.

Heemstra and her colleagues are working on a new method to shed light – quite literally -- on how the transport and positioning of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules inside a living cell affect protein synthesis. (mRNA carries instructions from DNA in the cell nucleus to the ribosomes, the cell’s protein-synthesizing machines.)

The title of her project is Fluorescent Biomolecular Labeling to Image RNA Localization and Promote Independent Learning.

Cottrell Scholar profile for Jennifer Heemstra.

 

Aaron Esser-Kahn photoEsser-Kahn is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. The title of his project is Activation of the Innate Immune System with Light: A Chemical Biology Approach to Improving Vaccination. Excerpt from Cottrell Scholars web site.

Vaccines are among the most effective human health inventions ever, yet precisely how they work remains unknown.

What is known is that most effective vaccines activate multiple Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) located on dendritic cells, the tree-like cells (Greek, dendron, tree) found in our lymph nodes as well as other immune system organs such as the spleen, thymus and tonsils.

These receptors seem to interact and cooperate.

However, according to Aaron Esser-Kahn, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Irvine, these synergies are not understood at a cellular level. Esser-Kahn has received Cottrell Scholar funding to investigate vaccines at the molecular level.

Cottrell Scholar profile for Aaron Esser-Kahn.