Assistant Professor Elizabeth Stone, PhD, the Ed O'Connell Professor in Chemistry, traveled this past summer to Washington, D.C., with her student research team: Eleanor Feuster ’27, Kacey McGorry ’27, Mason Macuch ’28, and Katelyn Wiehe ’27, to meet with Georgetown University collaborators in the He Lab, Department of Biology.
During the visit, the group from Fairfield's John Charles Meditz College of Arts and Sciences presented research, toured the Georgetown laboratory, and observed the tadpoles that will soon be used to test the molecules they have synthesized back home in their Fairfield Meditz lab.
Dr. Stone and her student researchers are on a mission to develop chemical tools to better understand what happens in neurons during learning and how disruptions in these processes might contribute to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. At the heart of their work is the creation of pharmaceutically relevant peptides containing noncanonical amino acids—those beyond the 20 genetically encoded building blocks of proteins. These molecules are designed to temporarily bind a specific neuronal protein—the neuronal membrane proteasome (NMP)—which plays a critical role in regulating protein breakdown within cells. By inhibiting NMPs in a controlled way, the team can watch how neurons adapt, opening new windows into the cellular choreography behind learning and memory.
Under their professor's guidance, the student researchers have taken part in designing, synthesizing, and characterizing these molecules, gaining hands-on experience in reaction design, purification, and analysis. “They are always ready to try something new and work through the challenges that inevitably arise from exploring a new research project,” Dr. Stone said.
