John Stubbs, Sarah Cooper, Wyler Scamman and Matthijs van den Berg present at American Chemical Society

John Stubbs, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry, and students Sarah Cooper (Biochemistry and Neuroscience '15), Wyler Scamman (Marine Science '15) and Matthijs van den Berg (Chemistry '13), presented at the 249th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Denver, Colorado.

Stubbs’ talk, which included work by the students, was titled "Molecular simulation of surface density effects on heterogeneous DNA hybridization." The data included a study of how crowding of single stranded DNA attached to a surface affects the formation and stability of the double stranded form of DNA. The results can aid in the design of rapid DNA sequence testing using microarray technology.

Two of the students gave their own poster presentations as well. Cooper’s poster was titled "Effect of unequal strand length on DNA hybridization in a model microarray system via Monte Carlo simulation." The study investigated the impact of different single strand DNA lengths on the stability of the resulting double stranded DNA and how attachment to a surface can have a variable effect depending on where the two sequences align.  The results can aid in the interpretation of results from rapid DNA sequence testing using microarray technology.

Scamman presented "A modified coarse-grained DNA model and its application to surface density effects on hybridization," which discussed work that improved the simultaneous modeling of multiple DNA strands and applied it to DNA surface crowding effects. The results allow further study into experiments that can aid in the design of rapid DNA sequence testing using microarray technology.