Sep 23, 2010 - Claremont, CA -

Recent graduates who worked in the lab of David Vosburg, assistant professor of chemistry, have had their work published in the Journal of Chemical Education.

The articles describe efforts to develop innovative green chemistry experiments for undergraduate teaching labs. In one case, students make the anti-coagulant (blood-thinning) drug warfarin in a single catalytic step with greater purity than if the drug were prescribed.

In another article, students describe using an enzyme from horseradish to couple two molecules of vanillin (from vanilla) to form divanillin, which can enhance the flavoring properties of vanillin.



Vosburg said, “Each of these experiments has been optimized to reduce energy and chemical waste while illustrating important chemical concepts and bringing modern chemistry into undergraduate laboratories.”



The student coauthors are Terence Wong ’09 and Camille Sultana ’10 (for warfarin) and Rachel Nishimura ’09 and Chiara Giammanco ’10 (for divanillin).