This course allows students to assist in a class or laboratory for which they have previously earned credit. The student will assist the instructor in the operation of the course. Assistance by the student may include fielding questions, helping in workshops, and assisting in review sessions. In the case of labs, students may also be asked to help with supervising safety practices, waste manifestation, and instrumentation.

This course is a faculty-directed student project or research in chemistry that could be considered of an original nature.

This course is a faculty-directed student project or research involving laboratory work, computer modeling, or theoretical calculations that could be considered of an original nature. The level of study is appropriate for students in their final two years of study.

Chemists are required to communicate information about their research, laboratory, and themselves in writing. This course is designed to develop these skills. Students will learn how to write a curriculum vitae, resume, laboratory overview, short and long research abstracts, and scientific research articles using the various formats and styles used by chemists. An integral part of the writing of a research article is the initial formulation of the research hypothesis and design of experiments to test the hypothesis. This course will also review and stress the importance of these components.

Dissertation research by the candidate for an appropriate topic as arranged between the candidate and the research advisor.

Continuation of Thesis

This course will teach state of the art chemical separations and methods which are coupled to mass spectroscopy for the modern analysis of pharmaceutical and biotechnology samples in industrial and academic laboratories. These include gas chromatography (GC, GC-MS), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, LC-MS), solid phase extraction (SPE and SPME), size exclusion/gel permeation (SEC, GPC), and ion exchange chromatography (IXC). Aspects of mass spectroscopy including ionization methods of electron impact (EI), chemical ionization (CI), positive and negative electrospray (ES+, ES-), APCI, and MALDI and techniques involving single and multiple ion/reaction methods (SIM, SRM, MRM) will be included. The separation and analysis of peptides, proteins and pharmaceuticals by LC and LC-MS will be a major focus. Isolation of drug metabolites from serum by SPE followed by HPLC analysis or using size exclusion chromatography to separate biomolecules, or labeling a peptide with a near infrared (NIR) dye are examples of important skills that are learned.