February
We are proud to present our first publication in 2018. Do you want to know more? Check it out (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/…/10…/chem.201706004/abstract). Stay tuned, more publications are coming soon.
|
March
Part of the academic and professional development of a young researcher is planning and working towards your the next step, big or small it has to be aligned with your dreams and goals. It is with great pleasure, that we announce that Rocio Zorrilla, one of our undergraduate students has accepted a position in the PhD Program of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in the University of Texas Health Science Center - Houston. Rocio has completed 3.5 years of research experiences with us at the López and Stelzer Crystallization Research Laboratories, gone to two different summer research experiences programs, won an outstanding poster award at 2017 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, was a participant of the Puerto Rico Louis Stokes for Minority Participation, Institute for Functional Nanomaterials, and the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program, this May 2018 she will graduate from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus with a mayor in Biology. Congratulations Rocio! We are all very proud of you and we have no doubt that you will continue to succeed as a person and scientist.
|
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this must be attained.” – Marie Curie
Following many challenges natural and what not. It’s a momentous occasion when one can say that all of these efforts and challenges were overcomed, and we can share our gift and our knowledge with others by releasing our first peer-reviewed journal publication. We are grateful for José R. Hernández Espinell who took this journey with us for all his time, effort, and intellectual contributions but most importantly for not giving up. Check out the full paper at Cryst. Growth Des., 2018, 18 (4), pp 1995–2002 DOI: 10.1021/acs.cgd.7b01374 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.cgd.7b01374 |
April
Froylan Omar Fernández, who was an University of Puerto Rico Chemical Learning Integrated in Materials and Biomolecular Applications, Research Experience for Undergraduate (UPR-CLIMB REU) student in the López & Stelzer Crystallization Laboratories this past summer 2017, attended and presented a poster pertaining his summer research project at the 255th National American Chemical Society Meeting and Exposition in New Orleans this past April 18-22 2018. Congratulations Froylan! We are all proud of the work you performed in our laboratory and the accomplishments that together we have achieved. Froylan will attend the Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program in Chemistry at the University of Michigan this summer 2018.
|
Exciting news for some of our undergraduates who have recently been accepted to participate in summer internship programs. Waldemar Rodríguez will be attending the University of Pittsburgh in their Summer Undergraduate Research Program, Victor Vázquez was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania Summer Undergraduate Internship Program, Erika Serrano was accepted at The Scripps Research Institute in Florida, and Roberto Santiago will intern his summer at Gilead Sciences. Congratulations to you all! We are very proud and have no doubt that the four of you will excel at each program you have been selected to attend.
|
May
Congratulations are in order for one of our lab members, Víctor Vázquez Marrero, for his recent achievement on becoming one of the eleven awardees for the scholarship fund “Jaime and Teresa Cordero” of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras’ Campus. This scholarship is attributed to outstanding undergraduates with competitive GPA’s, demonstrating high academic achievements and valuable community service. We will always support our extraordinary students and shape them into better ones. Keep up the good work Víctor!
|
This past May 15, 2018 Mery Vet George de la Rosa successfully defended her Master’s thesis and obtained with it her Master’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus. All the members of the Crystallization Design Institute including her mentors and also her committee members are very proud of Mery for this accomplishment. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
|
On May 30, 2018 Betsy Orta Rodríguez defended her Master’s Thesis as part of the requirements for the Master’s in Chemistry from the Chemistry Graduate Program at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras Campus. All the members of the Crystallization Design Institute including her mentors and also her committee members are very proud of Betsy’s accomplishment. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
|
On May 31, 2018 Israel Rodriguez Rodriguez, became the first doctoral student from the Crystallization Design Institute to defended his Proposal A, one of the four milestones in the Chemistry Graduate Program needed to obtain a PhD at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras Campus. Congratulations Israel on reaching this important step in your academic career!
|
June
Great news this summer! Two of our student were accepted in prestigious fellowship programs within the UPR system. Our undergraduate student Erika Serrano was accepted in the Maximizing Access to Research Careers Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research (MARC U-STAR) Program at the University of Puerto Rico, Humacao Campus and our graduate student Israel Rodriguez was accepted in the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) Program at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. These programs will help provide them with necessary tools to become greater scientist. Congrats to both!We are very excited to see what's to come from you.
|
July
Group photo of the 2018 UPR-Río Piedras' NSF REU: Puerto Rico-Chemical Learning in Materials and Biomolecular Program (PR-CLIMB). We are pleased to welcome Molly Hartman (far right in photo) from Colorado State University and Bradley Mahaffey (down and to the left of Dr. Stelzer) from Morehead State University in Kentucky to the Crystallization Design Institute, they will be performing research activities with us this summer. We look forward to seeing you CLIMB! If you are an undergrad interested in materials science, or would like to learn more about this REU Program visit, https://reu-prclimb.weebly.com
|
This past July 26, 2018 Bradley and Molly presented their investigations carried out during the summer period in the Crystallization Design Institute as part of the National Science Foundation, Puerto Rico-Chemical Learning Integrated in Materials and Biomolecular Applications (NSF REU: PR-CLIMB) program, all the group members and their mentors, José Hernandez and Israel Rodriguez; respectively, are very proud of their effort and dedication during this period. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
|
August
We are excited to announce the latest publication of the Crystallization Design Institute, Chapter 10 in the book Green Chemical Engineering (Volume 12) edited by Paul T. Anastas and Alexei Lapkin The chapter is entitled: “Process Analytical Chemistry and Nondestructive Analytical Methods: The Green Chemistry Approach for Reaction Monitoring, Control, and Analysis” It is a must-read for anyone doing work in the field of Process Analytical Chemistry (PAC) and Process Analytical Technology (PAT).
|
We congratulate our students, Karina Sanabria, Joyce Serrano, Roberto Santiago and Waldemar Rodriguez for being accepted to the Puerto Rico Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (PR-LSAMP) program. The PR-LSAMP is a highly competitive program that provides students with resources, seminars, and workshops to foster their professional development as undergraduate students in the STEM field. We are all very proud of your achievement! #CrystallizationDesignInstitute
|
October
We are extremely honored to be able to share our latest publication: Measurement and Correlation of the Solubility of 5-Fluorouracil in Pure and Binary Solvents. This publication is the product of hard work, particularly in times of great adversity. As many of you know, Puerto Rico suffered in many ways as a consequence of Hurricane Maria. One aspect that has been highlighted recently in C&EN was its impact on Puerto Rico’s research infrastructure (https://cen.acs.org/…/Puerto-Ricos-universities-road…/96/i37
). While some laboratories were incapacitated and had to stop their research activities temporarily, our laboratory was able to keep working, as well as finding ways we could give back to our community. Aside from helping in the relief and recovery efforts , our focus was to channel our attention in things we could control. Working on manuscripts and proposals was one of our outlets for managing the many difficulties we had to endure. Thanks to the continued perseverance and resilience of our former undergraduate student Rocío I. Zorrilla- who fought tirelessly to overcome many adversities prior and post Maria- today we are able to present our latest work. In this publication, we explored the solubility of 5-fluorouracil, a chemotherapeutic agent, in various class 2 and 3 solvents. This work is the next step towards exploring ways to improve the treatment with this agent, by finding new polymorphic forms. Thank you for everyone that supported us, and made this work possible! Particularly, we gratefully acknowledge the support from Amy Wagner from Technobis Crystallization Systems. Read more here: (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jced.8b00425) DOI: 10.1021/acs.jced.8b00425 “Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” -Jamais Cascio #CrystallizationDesignInstitute |
We would like to congratulate our graduate student, Wilfredo J. Cardona Velez on successfully defending his Proposal A! Thanks to his hard work and dedication, he is now one step closer to earning his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras Campus. We are all extremely proud of your achievement! #CrystallizationDesignInstitute
|
This past Friday, October 5th and Thursday, October 11th, the Crystallization Design Institute and CreandoConciencia engaged with high school students and the general public in the MSRC Open House and the CDI Open House. Many volunteers came together to make these activities possible. We want to thank all of our lab members, as well as Tri-Beta UPRRP Chapter students: Paola Chamorro, Carolina Quiles, Cristina Quiles, and William Rivera for taking time out of their day to help us with these wonderful scientific awareness activities. Your efforts have granted us the opportunity to show how our science research raises awareness. Thank you!
#CrystallizationDesignInstitute #CreaCienciaPR |
November
We would like to congratulate our graduate student, Lesly Carmona on successfully defending her Proposal A! Thanks to her hard work and dedication, she is now one step closer to earning her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras Campus. We are all extremely proud of your achievement! #CrystallizationDesignInstitute
|
We are excited to announce the latest publication of the #CrystallizationDesignInstitute! A chapter in Science of Synthesis’s latest volume of “Flow Chemistry in Organic Synthesis” edited by T.F. Jamison and G. Koch. The chapter is entitled: “Separation and Purification in the Continuous Synthesis of Fine Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals.” Check it out here: https://science-of-synthesis.thieme.com/app/text/…
|
December
This past weekend the #CrystallizationDesignInstitute Principal investigators, Dr. V. Lopez-Mejias and Dr. Stelzer along with two of our graduate students, Israel Rodriguez and Jean Feng, volunteered their time to train several teachers for the 5th National Crystal Growth Competition. We are excited to continue the Crystallization Design Institute's outreach efforts through collaborations with PREM-UPR Wisconsin, PREM-UPR CHESS, Science on Wheels and CreandoConCiencia. Thank you to everyone involved for making this a successful activity!
|