Cole Carey ’19

"Crosslinking Dirhodium Complexes to Macromolecules to Increase their Uptake in Cancer Cells"

Major: Chemistry
Hometown: Hellertown, PA
Project Advisor: Dr. Stephen Dunham

Briefly describe your project.

Trying to connect Rhodium complexes to proteins using crosslinkers.

Describe the origin of your project.

Dr. Steve came to me with the idea and wanted to work with me on and refine it.

What’s the best part about working with your faculty mentor? What valuable insights have they brought to your project?

They helped boost my skills and confidence in chemistry and showed me that what I thought my faults were, were nothing out of the norm for everyone.

What has been your biggest obstacle so far?

In the nature of research, trying to make things work out the way you envisioned them without having any prior knowledge of its characteristics can make it very frustrating to complete it in a timely fashion.

What has been your biggest takeaway from this experience?

“Don’t worry so much”, and “try to approach it from a different angle.”

What was the result of your project? 

The compound we were trying to make worked and we were able to crosslink the compounds.

In your own words, how do you feel about being awarded this opportunity? Why should other students take advantage of the SOAR program at Moravian University?

Going into this, I felt that I shouldn’t be doing this because I have no idea what I’m doing and no idea how to even approach this kind of stuff. But now, with the help of this project, I feel as though I can accomplish almost any task, even if it seems out of my league, with enough time and patience.

Now that SOAR is over, do you plan to expand upon your research? If so, how?

I do plan on working on this research a little bit more in the upcoming semester as an independent research project.

Have you, or do you plan to present this research outside the SOAR presentations?

I’ve heard about a certain conference Moravian is offering later this year and I’d love to present at that with my newfound info, even though the thought of that is still terrifying.