Team Members

Students

Brian Yi Liu

Brian is a junior double majoring in biology and chemistry. He is interested in cutting-edge technology and movies. He is currently the president of the Bard Student Chapter of the American Chemical Society.

Eric Reed

Eric Reed is a sophomore Chemistry major at Bard College.

Faculty Advisor

Prof. Christopher LaFratta

Prof. LaFratta is a professor of Physical and Analytical Chemistry. He received his PhD from The University of Maryland. Prof. LaFratta completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral program which aims to provide the broad set of skills required of new faculty such as mentoring students, performing research with undergraduates, and practicing effective teaching methods. His research focuses on developing chemical sensing platforms that rely on cutting-edge microfabrication techniques. These lab-on-a-chip systems can be exploited for the detection of single molecules. http://chemistry.bard.edu/faculty/

Prof. Swapan Jain

Prof. Jain is a professor of Biochemistry in the Chemistry Department at Bard College. He received his PhD from The Georgia Institute of Technology. Before joining Bard, he was a postdoctoral faculty fellow at Boston University. Prof. Jain’s research is focused on understanding the structural changes that take place when nucleic acids bind to small molecules. Specifically, his group is involved in understanding the binding affinity of guanine-analogs to mRNA segments called riboswitches. Projects are also underway where small molecule intercalation is used as a means to assemble structures that can subsequently be ligated together using enzymes. https://sites.google.com/site/swapanjain/