A Westminster College junior biochemistry major spent 10 weeks this past summer working on computational simulations of the histone mRNA degradation complex at Duquesne University.
Gabriella Hunter from New Baltimore, Mich., was chosen to participate in the Integrated Computational and Experimental Chemistry National Science Foundation-Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) Program.
Hunter worked in the biochemistry lab on the project “Role of 3'hExo in Histone mRNA Degradation” alongside Duquesne faculty members Dr. Rita Mihailescu and Dr. Jeffrey Evanseck, Westminster College Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dr. Patrick Lackey, and graduate students Caylee Cunningham and Adam Kensinger.
The team worked on creating a better understanding of the degradation process and learning the roles of every structure involved, testing to see how the 3’hExo interacts with the mRNA when it is degrading it.
Hunter says that Westminster College prepared her