Eight students from Niagara University’sDepartment of Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Physics presented their research at the American Chemical Society’s fall national meeting, Aug. 17-21, 2025. Three of their peers, three members of the faculty, and two recent graduates also attended the meeting, which was held in Washington, D.C.
Students presenting research they performed in the lab of Dr. Luis Sanchez, associate professor and chair of the department, were senior chemistry major Adrian Martinez, who received an ACS travel award to present his talk on “Studies toward the synthesis of ent-artemisinin, a potential anti-malarial compound”; senior biochemistry major Elise Spence, who presented “Development of a biaryl oxidative coupling-based route to the anti-tumor natural products TMC-95”; sophomore chemistry major Ryan Nguyen, who presented “Bicyclic ring closure-based strategies for the synthesis of cage molecule building blocks”; and junior chemistry major Sheridan Felix, who presented “Synthesis of dehydroleucine derivatives as building blocks for complex molecule synthesis.”
Junior chemistry major Breana Andrews and sophomore biochemistry major Carson Blatner presented “Using Cholestosome Technology to deliver highly insoluble therapeutics, the case of Olaparib,” and junior biochemistry major Isabella Nakhla presented “Development of a therapeutic for heavy metal poisoning using the Cholestosome technology.” These students performed their research in the lab of chemistry professor Dr. Mary McCourt, who directs the university’s Biomedical Research Institute on the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus.
Chemistry senior Zachary Holmes presented “Exploring tellurium’s reactivity: Novel Benzofuzed telluropyrylium chromophore,” which he performed in the lab of assistant professor of chemistry Dr. Lauren Rosch.
