RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

So what does an Engineering and Economics major have to do with chemistry.? That is a fair question but what would you say if I told you that I specialised in Biology in Sixth form in Ghana. Or that I actually hleped tutor weak students in Physics in Adisadel college (my secondary school). Or would you be surprised learn that I used to represent my school in french competitons all the time when I was at Adisadel. Innitially the fact that I was a jack of all trades used to bug me because I thought that it was only logical that I would end up as master...... But I need not have worried when I chose swarthmore for college. It is amazing what opportunities a libral arts education can offer to the adventurous mind. Being forever intruiged by the other sciences I decided to do reseach in something other than engineering.

Last summer I did research in the Chemistry Department of Swarthmore College under the guidance of Professor Ahamindra Jain. I studied the hypoglycaemic activity of the fruit of Karela. In simple language, I studied how the juice of karela fruit can help to curb the incidence of Diabetes mellitus. The research which had a big sohxlet - extraction component to it focussed on increasing the percentage yield of p-polypeptide, believed to have hypoglycaemic activity, from karela fruit and dried seed by quantitative and anlytical methods. In collaboration with Shamsah Ebrahim who carried out in vitro-studies on rats by feeding the Karela extracts to them, Professor Jain and I studied the in -vivo aspect of the project by carrying out analytical experiments.

As if to enrich my laboratory experience and my competence as a researcher I had to work with a high schools tudent, Chrisitine Dibona. My task was to make her understand what I was doing in order for her to help with the expriments. I found the experience challenging but enjoyable. I got to know how to use rot-vaps, centrifuges, spectrophotometers,gas-chambers, the dry ice machine and how to take and analyse chemical data quickly and efficiently. I also learned to take and interprete IR and NMR data. On the whole it was a very enriching experience. I especially liked working with Ahamindra and Chrisitine as well as Jeff Doyon ad Polina Kehayova who were working on a seperate project with Prof Jain.

This summer, I hope to do research in the engine department with either prof Lynn Molter or prof Eric Cheever. If you ask me my research experience has actually just taken off.