The Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS)

            From November 5^th to November 9^th I went to the minority conference ABRCMS on Orlando, Florida. It was a great professional and personal experience. I have the opportunity of meeting undergraduate and graduate students who were going to presents their work. I also met different professors that were offering us diverse possibilities of graduate and medical schools. The conferences were amazing but the two that I liked most were the one called “Targeting DNA-Adduct Stereochemistry and p53Mdm2 Complexes for Improved Breast Cancer Cell Death” by Dr. Jill Bargonetti because is very similar to my investigation in the way that she is working with the DNA bonding protein p53 that stops cell growth but it can induce cell death and “Choosing Sex: How Germ Cells Take the Road Less Traveled” by Dr. David C. Page. I choose this last one like my favorite because he explain that broad material in a very simply way and I really enjoyed it.  The booths were great. I took a lot of information and I even met Puerto Ricans studying in the United States.  But the thing that I liked the most was the Award time. Puerto Rico won a lot of awards and I felt very proud because of it. I will like to thanks Biominds and to my mentor, Mayra Cadiz, for giving me the opportunity of present my investigation.

My last post of the second semester of investigation!!

         We reach to end of the second semester of investigation and I have to say that this was the best semester ever.  In contrast to the first semester of investigation this semester two platinum complexes with methyl groups in the benzothiazole were created. The complexes formed were cis-[PtCl₂(NH₃)(2,5,6-trimethylbenzothiazole)] and cis-[PtCl₂(NH₃)(2-methylbenzothiazole)]. The ¹H NMR spectral studies were made to confirm the creation of these complexes. Personally I am very satisfied because it’s very difficult to make these complexes and the NMR’s are looking good from my perspective. Now we need to make more studies to characterize these two syntheses and if they result to be uncontaminated we are going to study their reactions with guanosine monophosphate (GMP) and compare them to other syntheses created in the laboratory. Honestly, my investigation was not more that it was because I dedicated this semester to help creating other syntheses using different kinds of thiazole to present our investigation in the ABRCMS conference. But I don’t feel sorry for that because I learned more that I could think and I could see the difference of having a benzene stick together to the thiazole and what effects that brings to the complex. I want to thanks to my mentor, Dr. Mayra E. Cádiz, for be always available to answer questions and to help us in everything. To my lab partner, Magdelisse Velázquez, because she helped me in everything and we made in one semester something that other person could do in one year.