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When Dr. Kumler's combinatorial chemistry class
went on a field trip to the University of Pittsburgh last spring, little did
Gayle realize that this would be the springboard for the most intense summer of
her life. Dr. Peter Wipf, a charming European chemist who hosted the class,
invited Gayle to apply for a summer internship. From the end of May to July 31st,
Gayle spent 12-hour days in the lab working on new reagents for the Mitsunobu
reaction, using steroids. The Mitsunobu reaction involves a carboxylic acid and
an alcohol. Prior to this, Gayle had been interested in medicinal and
pharmaceutical chemistry, but her 2003 summer experience has led her to a love
of straight synthetic organic chemistry. She has been invited to present her
summer research at an ACS conference in Anaheim, CA at the end of March. Gayle
described how to condense ammonia (at - 40 degrees Centigrade) used to make an
amino group for an azodicarboxylate derivative. Gayle also used familiar
techniques as TLC (thin-layer chromatography and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)
spectroscopy. Gayle is looking to apply to graduate school at University of
Pittsburgh, Boston U., Michigan U. and UC at Berkeley, among many others.
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