In July 2017, 
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Chris Calderone completed the first year of his National Science Foundation grant project, “Condensation Domain-Catalyzed Dehydration” (NSF award 1608723), a three-year project to investigate the creation in the lab of complex biological molecules that may have therapeutic uses. The project also entails training numerous undergraduate students and an outreach program at a Twin Cities college prep program, LearningWorks.
In Year One of the grant, Prof. Calderone worked with four Carleton undergraduate researchers and with 24 students enrolled in his “Biological Chemistry Laboratory” course. Two of his undergraduate researchers worked with faculty members at LearningWorks to develop curricular modules based on the lab research, helping them acquire expertise in modern experimental techniques and research questions. This work will have beneficial broader effects in developing and implementing learning experiences at LearningWorks. All of these activities will continue in the next two years of the grant project, during which the scientific research activities will intensify.