Synthesis of the Intermediate of a Catalytic Reaction: An NHC-Stabilized, First-Row Transition Metal Complex
Meng Zhou, Lawrence Technological University
The advanced synthesis laboratory course object allows students to study the synthesis, purification, and characterizations of a new diamagnetic organometallic complex of a first-row transition metal. The air-stable complex is stabilized by an N-heterocyclic carbene spectator ligand. It also bears an actor ligand and therefore, is potentially a reactive intermediate of a catalytic reaction. The synthesis of a reactive intermediate is the key to elucidate the mechanism of catalysis. The instructor chooses the first-row transition metal and the actor ligand based on his or her interests. The CURE starts from an NHC-ligated complex that does not bear this actor ligand but is otherwise similar. In our CURE, an anion ligand-replacement reaction was used to install the actor ligand, but an instructor may choose other approaches. The students will evaluate their results by standard spectroscopic analyses using UV-vis, FT-IR, and proton NMR (60 MHz or above) analysis.

Design2Data
Ashley Vater, University of California-Davis
The D2D program is centered around an undergraduate-friendly protocol workflow that follows the design-build-test-learn engineering framework. This protocol has served as the scaffold for a successful undergraduate training program and has been further developed into courses that range from a 10-week freshman seminar to a year-long, upper-division molecular biology course. The overarching research goal of this CURE probes the current predictive limitations of protein-modeling software by functionally characterizing single amino acid mutants in a robust model system. The most interesting outcomes of this project are dependent on large datasets, and, as such, the project is optimal for multi-institutional collaborations.

Random gene mutagenesis for gene identification linked to prodigiosin production in Serratia marcescens
Verena Carvalho, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
This lab course is designed to provide course-based undergraduate research experiences. You will learn how to prepare, execute, and interpret your own experiments. While all of you will conduct the same techniques in the course, each of you will create their own sets of mutant strains and study different features of your bacterium. We will study Serratia marcescens, an opportunistic, nosocomial pathogen, and is particularly linked to catheter-associated bacteremia, urinary tract infections, and wound infections. It is responsible for 1.4% of hospital-acquired infection cases in the United States. These bacteria are commonly found in the respiratory and urinary tracts of hospitalized adults, and in the gastrointestinal systems of children. Many strains of S. marcescens have a bright red colony color (a tripyrrole pigment called prodigiosin), while pigment production is often temperature-dependent. Prodigiosin is a secondary metabolite, and its expression is thought to be related to phosphate limitation. It was also identified as a natural bioactive substance with high potential for antibiotic and anti-cancer applications. It currently receives renewed attention for its wide range of potential applications, including activities as antimalarial, antifungal, immunosuppressant, and antibiotic agents. It is also prominently known for its capacity to trigger apoptosis of malignant cancer cells, and high activity against stationary phase Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, has been demonstrated. Given its diverse effects, the exact mechanisms are currently not elucidated, and may be highly complex, including phosphatase inhibition, copper mediated cleavage of double stranded DNA, or disrupting the pH gradient through transmembrane transport of H+ and Cl- ions. Clearly, prodigiosin is a highly promising drug candidate, and is currently in preclinical phase study for pancreatic cancer treatment. In this course, we will use the transposon Tn5 to generate random mutations in the chromosome of Serratia marcescens. The transposon will be provided by a plasmid hosted in a donor E. coli strain, and transferred into your test bacterium via conjugation. We will then first select for successfully transposed mutants by testing for antibiotic resistance, and screen for your mutants that are altered in their pigment production. To identify the gene where the mutation has happened, we will remove the chromosomal DNA from the mutant strains, perform restriction enzyme digest, and generate self-circulating DNA. These plasmids are transformed into an E. coli strain that can replicate the fragment of genomic DNA that contains the transposon, and we can sequence the insertion site with the transposon DNA as anchor. In summary, in this course you will gain hands-on experience with modern genetic and biotechnological techniques, you will gain insights into bioinformatics and into working with public databases, which are all essential skills in modern microbiological research.

BIOL 189T Fungal Biology
Alija Mujic, California State University-Fresno
The diversity, community structure, and functional diversity of fungi in the high Sierra is understudied and is largely unknown from the Sierra Nevada foothills. Through use of direct field sampling I will engage BIOL189T students in sampling efforts to elucidate the fungal biology of these understudied habitats. Students will sample fungal sporocarps (mushrooms) from existing field plots established by the National Environmental Observation Network (NEON) and use morphological identification techniques and DNA barcoding methods to identify the fungal diversity in these habitats. Future iterations of the course will likely focus upon selected fungal taxa identified in previous iterations of the course to investigate the phenology and ecological interactions of the fungal community in these habitats in NEON plots.

Synthesis and characterization of KLVFF derivatives: Propensity to aggregate?
Kalyani Maitra, California State University-Fresno
The aggregation of β-amyloid peptide plaques in the brain plays an important role in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Studies have shown that the specific peptide sequence of KLVFF (lysine, leucine, valine, phenylalanine, phenylalanine) has an important role in β-amyloid formation. In this research, pentapeptide derivatives of KLVFF containing nonpolar, hydrophobic amino acids will be synthesized and characterized by 1H-NMR spectroscopy. NMR-based structural studies will be done to understand the structure-function/activity relationship of these polypeptide chains in various solvents. This will provide a deeper insight about the process of aggregation of proteins in various physiological environment and its critical role in AD.

Designing Authentic Undergraduate Experiences in Research (DAUER)
Joseph Ross, California State University-Fresno
In this research experience, students will learn about how inheritance of diverse genetic material from their parents can impact the health (fecundity) of offspring. Students will design experiments to mate pairs of populations from a diverse global collection of microscopic worms and measure and compare the fecundities of their hybrid offspring.

Yeast, metabolism and suicide: a brewing introduction to biochemical research
Laurent Dejean, California State University-Fresno
This course provides the student with a range of techniques and methodology appropriate to the study or phenomena at the biochemical, cellular, and organismic levels. In the spirit of genuine undergraduate research (CURE), the students will be involved directly in research that is ongoing in the Dejean's lab, i.e. the study of the mechanisms used by Bcl-2 family proteins to cross-regulate cell death and energy metabolism. The students' involvement in this type of research will be following a set of preliminary experiments which are aimed at familiarizing the students with common biochemistry lab skills; and with the manipulation of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae which is to be used as the main model system in their research. Finally, the students will also engage directly with primary literature sources in preparation of their lab reports and an eventual presentation of their research at the Fresno State CURE symposium at the end of the semester.

Chemical Analysis of Coffee Beans in Collaboration with a Local Roaster
Susan Oxley, St. Marys University
This CURE will take place in an Analytical Chemistry course. Students in the CURE course will collaborate with a local coffee roaster to develop a research question related to quantifying components of coffee beans. Using standard methods of analysis, students will work in groups to perform the analysis and validate their results. The outcome of the research will be a report to the coffee roaster.

Understanding Noncovalent Interactions and Binding through PRRSM
Amanda Hargrove, Duke University
This CURE was designed to increase instruction on noncovalent interactions and intermolecular forces, provide laboratory experiences in biochemistry and chemical biology, and deliver a more consistent chemistry research experience to undergraduates at Duke University while staying within the existing curriculum. First, the concept of noncovalent interactions is visualized in an applied setting by examining 3D structures of small molecule:RNA interactions through a portable virtual reality (VR) environment. Next, using knowledge gained in the Hargrove lab regarding small molecule:RNA interactions along with the literature examples, teams of students evaluate known small molecule:RNA interactions, pose original scientific questions, and design a hypothesis-driven experiment that can be readily tested with commercially available materials using a standard fluorimeter or plate reader. These experiments directly contribute to research that examines patterns in the recognition of RNA structure by small molecules, and the students are able to assess their contribution to this ongoing interdisciplinary project.

Hydridotris(pyrazolyl)borate Ruthenium(II) Complexes Containing Phosphine or Phosphite Ligands
Jocelyn Lanorio, Illinois College
This course-based research will introduce students in an advanced inorganic chemistry course to air-sensitive and catalysis. Students will examine a series of ruthenium(II) hydridotris(pyrazolyl)borato complexes with phosphine or phosphite ligands using modern instrumentation and specialized equipment such as Schlenk line and drybox. The first two meetings should be devoted for literature search, familiarization of instrument operation, and selection of phosphine or phosphite ligand along with student submitting proposal that contains the safety protocols and handling of the chemicals involved in their selected system. Four meetings will then be designated for the synthesis and characterization of the complex. The students run catalytic and control reactions and determine the percent yield of the product using 1H NMR. The synthesis and catalytic conditions are modified from previously published research articles. This experiment combines complex synthesis, characterization, data analysis and data sharing.