Welcome to the third annual newsletter from the Gettysburg College Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program. After a few hiccups (across the world and also here at the college), we are back to our new normal post-pandemic life on-campus. After an amazing year-long research sabbatical here on campus and then in South Korea, I am back in my role as chair and truly appreciate the work Kate Buettner did in her role as interim chair last year.
We are currently sitting at a record number of BMB majors, 60 at last count, with the majority of our interested first-year students yet to declare. Students continue to be more drawn to the interdisciplinary and problem-solving based coursework of BMB, but also our strong sense of program identity which we have cultivated through initiatives ranging from a dedicated BMB seminar series to themed social hours (ranging from fire pits on the patio for s’mores on a Fall Friday afternoon to “drive-by” snacks where students can pick up home baked treats on their way to class/studying). Our BOMBS peer-mentoring program continues to thrive, in which each of our senior mentor volunteers this year is paired up with three sophomore mentees due to the size of the class.
In terms of curricular updates, we have several new course electives for students to choose from including Advanced Organic Chemistry, Intro to Bioinformatics, and Phage Genomics. Based on feedback from our students and a recent external review, we started offering a biophysical chemistry course where physical chemistry is taught through the lens of biology (topics include molecular diffusion, fluorescence microscopy, and computational methods) and now students have a choice between this and the more traditional physical chemistry course; feedback has been positive so far.
Still to come this spring, we are looking forward to our annual senior celebration in April that starts with a festive dinner for senior students and BMB faculty and is followed by our BMB Senior Night where honors and awards are announced and then each graduating senior is personally lauded with reflections from their faculty. It is one of our favorite nights filled with four years of nostalgia with an undercurrent of excitement for adventures to come.
~ Shelli Frey, BMB Chair
As BMB continues to grow and evolve as its own program, we continue to increase the events, curricular offerings, and infrastructure for BMB students. If you are interested in supporting these initiatives, you can do so at www.gettysburg.edu/onlinegiving. On the form, please note the gift is for “BMB special gifts” which is funding to be used in direct support of programming, curricular innovation, and student-faculty research within the BMB program, or “BMB prize” to support the annual BMB award, established in 2004, given to a graduating senior who has excelled in both course work and laboratory research; this award is given on Spring Honors Day during Commencement Weekend.
Keep us updated! If you have news you’d like to share email one of the BMB faculty or our BMB Administrative Assistant, Lea Czar (lczar@gettysburg.edu). To keep up to date with BMB goings on, check our webpage at https://www.gettysburg.edu/academic-programs/biochemistry-molecular-biology/
Current BMB Faculty Members and Staff
The banner used for this newsletter is a photo taken by Professor Shelli Frey and student Jordyn Markle (BMB ’22) in the Imaging Suite at Gettysburg College. Entitled “Bold bright bubbles bouncing beautifully“, the photo shows a fluorescence microscopy image of 1.25 mg/ml 3:1 POPC:POPS giant unilamellar vesicles with 0.8% Texas Red-DHPE made in 90 mM sucrose.
