ARISE Scholar: Tracey-Ann Samuels
Chemistry R.E.U. Program
As a participant in the Syracuse University Chemistry R.E.U program I conducted research with Johannes Steinreiber, a doctoral student at the Technical University of Graz, Austria. His research was focused on elucidating the optimal reaction conditions that would give the highest yield of the synthetic amino acid, phenylserine. Specifically, the research was centered on finding the conditions that would produce either all anti or all syn products of phenyl serine. The amino acid was produced from the reaction of benzaldehyde and glycine. The reaction was catalyzed both enzymatically and chemically to see which method produced the best results. The experimental procedures did not produce a reaction that was selective for only the syn or anti product. However, it was found that when the reactions were done under conditions using the chemical catalyst, there was a higher product yield indicating that further research should be centered on using such catalysts in order to achieve selection for a single conformation of the amino acid.