High-Level Research Offers Pathway to Graduate Inquiry

Greyson Greischar ’27 spent his summer working on a scientific research project with a lofty goal — engineering a new enzyme.

If successful, it could streamline the creation of important pharmaceutical and agrochemical compounds while being more sustainable and more environmentally friendly than current methods.

“It’s a very sought-after reaction that people really haven’t been able to accomplish yet, but we think that this enzyme can possibly do it,” Greischar said. 

A chemistry major from New York City, Greischar was one of four Kenyon students conducting 10 weeks of high-level research at The Ohio State University as part of the Ohio 5-OSU Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE).

The paid internship program focuses on STEM and public health fields and is co-sponsored by Ohio State and the Five Colleges of Ohio, a group of liberal arts institutions that includes Kenyon, the College of Wooster, Denison University, Oberlin College and Ohio Wesleyan University.

Meant to serve as an introduction to the graduate research experience, the program allows participants to work with senior faculty as well as Ohio State undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

“(Student researchers) gain valuable hands-on experience, mentorship and professional connections that strengthen their preparation for graduate school and future careers,” said Tracy Rudisill, executive director of strategic partnerships for the Five Colleges of Ohio.

Thirty-three Kenyon students have taken part in the program since its inception in 2018. 

Greischar said his time in the lab of Felix Raps, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ohio State, gave him access to cutting-edge techniques, such as polymerase chain reactions (PCRs).

“It’s cool that’s something I get to do,” Greischar said. “It’s important modern technology that revolutionized the biological sciences.”

Interacting with graduate students in the lab was helpful as well as he thought about his future.

“It’s taught me a lot about the experience of finding a lab and applying to grad school — the actual logistics of choosing the right school,” he said. “And learning about the research project has helped me narrow down what I want to do.”

Sophia Ngo ’29, from the Cleveland area, had a similarly positive experience doing clinical research — something she hopes to pursue as a career — at The Ohio State University Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science, which is funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. 

She helped with clinical trials and analyzed data related to how certain manipulations of nicotine affect the addictiveness, appeal and toxicity of e-cigarettes.

“Doing undergraduate research at a large, prestigious research university like OSU is important,” Ngo said. “I’ve had access to a lot of resources, and I’ve also made a lot of valuable connections.”

She said her studies at Kenyon prepared her well for the experience, particularly by providing practical skills in biology and chemistry labs.

“I went into this summer experience with a solid understanding of basic lab techniques, scientific writing and discussion, and data analysis through code, and it provided me with a strong framework to build upon when I started work in a larger lab," Ngo said.

Participants live on Ohio State’s campus during the summer and have shared workshops and panels featuring OSU faculty, alumni of the program and more.

The program is led by Ohio State co-directors Thomas Magliery ’96 and Amy Ferketich. Magliery, an associate professor in Ohio State’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said his career path was strongly influenced by the dual research experiences he had as an undergraduate, when he worked in labs both in Gambier and at a major research university.

“Doing research at Kenyon, especially during the summer, comes with a lot of responsibility and attention that is hard to get in a lab with grad students and postdocs,” he said. “The labs were well equipped and I was doing high-level work (that we published), but of course I also got to see a lot of cutting-edge infrastructure at Penn State, an R1 university. And it was useful to see how R1 labs operated.”

The SURE program is one of two ongoing opportunities for Kenyon students to conduct research at Ohio State during the summer. The Kenyon/OSU/Pelotonia Cancer Research program is focused on cancer research and funded by the nonprofit Pelotonia.

Those who take part in SURE are among more than 110 Kenyon summer scholars who dedicate their summers to a paid research experience in Gambier or Columbus. The lessons they receive are invaluable compliments to their work during the academic year, according to Sheryl Hemkin, associate provost. 

“By the time you end some of these programs, you start to feel like you are truly a scientist, that you are fully engaged intellectually,” she said. “These are experiential projects that truly immerse you.”

Top-tier Research

Here are the specific projects that Kenyon students are working on as part of a partnership with The Ohio State University and Pelotonia.

• Greyson Greischar '27, "Engineering Fatty Acid Hydratases for Alkene Hydrofunctionalization"
  Mentor: Felix Raps, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The Ohio State University 

• Maggie Grespin ’27, “Relative Effect Size Estimation of Treatments for Non-Normal Outcomes”
  Mentor: Steephanson Anthonymuthu, assistant professor of teaching practice at The Ohio State University

• Muhammad Ibraheem Nadeem '27, "Predicting Absorption Spectra with Machine Learning from Molecular Dynamics Snapshots"
  Mentor: Amr Dodin, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The Ohio State University

• Sophia Ngo ’29, “Flipping the Script: Utilizing Nicotine's Three Dimensions to Maximize Public Health”
  Mentors: Ahmad El Hellani, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at The Ohio State University; Theodore Wagener, director of the Ohio State University-Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science (OSU-TCORS); Jean Nshimiyimana, clinical research coordinator at the OSU-TCORS