The Senior Scholar-Scientist Achievement Award

Distinction of Achievement

The Senior Scholar-Scientist Achievement Award is the highest level of distinction for a senior research student at ASDRP who we believe exemplifies the spirit of the Institution. Every year, ASDRP produces some of the best high school researchers in the country, who go on to do fantastic things in college and beyond. The Graduating Senior Scholar-Scientist Award is designed to recognize outstanding seniors for a track record of excellence in research at ASDRP. Eligible students must be third- or fourth-year ASDRP students who joined as freshmen or sophomores, and must be hand-nominated with a letter of support from their faculty supervisor. Awardees are voted on by the three Department Chairs and determined by unanimous confirmation by the ASDRP leadership on the basis of their scientific merit, achievements, and character. This year, the ASDRP leadership opted to recognize three outstanding seniors: Kimberly Khow (Amador Valley ‘24; UC Irvine ‘28; Njoo Lab), Adelina Chau (Archbishop Mitty ‘24; UC Berkeley ‘28), and Rosie Chen (Adrian Wilcox ‘24; Johns Hopkins ‘28).

Rosie Chen (Njoo Lab)

Adrian Wilcox '24 | Johns Hopkins '28

Rosie Chen - Njoo Lab (Adrian Wilcox High School ‘24) is a fourth year ASDRP student and current member of Dr. Njoo’s research group. Rosie’s journey at ASDRP began in the autumn of 2020 as a freshman. After a brief stint in the Kaur lab, where Rosie worked on the identification fungi using PCR and environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis, and another brief stint in Scott Clark’s lab (formerly in the Chemistry Department) working on the chemical synthesis of aryl-substituted pyrazoles for anticancer therapy. Following this, in 2021, Rosie joined Dr. Njoo’s group, initially working on an exceptionally challenging total synthesis of psychrophillin A, a cyclic indole N-acylated natural product with unique antifungal and anticancer properties, where Rosie and others developed a one-flask procedure for sequential installation of a t-butyl carbamate and basic hydrolysis of a methyl ester in pursuit of a key fragment of this natural product, while also working on the synthesis of a series of photocaged prodrugs of another natural product called podophyllotoxin (manuscript in progress). Following this, Rosie led an effort in using fluorine nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to probe the reaction mechanism of a three-component catalytic cyclocondensation, which was subsequently published in ACS Omega with Rosie as the first author (“Benchtop 19F Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy Provides Mechanistic Insight into the Biginelli Condensation toward the Chemical Synthesis of Novel Trifluorinated Dihydro- and Tetrahydropyrimidinones as Antiproliferative Agents”, ACS Omega 2023, 8, 11, 10545–10554, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.3c00290), where Rosie and co-authors established a new mechanism for the ytterbium-catalyzed preparation of fluorinated heterocycles with relevance in medicinal chemistry. Following this, Rosie jumped into a natural product synthesis project, and together with other students in the project co-authored a paper describing a means of using HPLC for real-time tracking of a ketal hydrolysis (“High-performance liquid chromatography insight in pH-dependent hydrolysis of andrographolide acetonide”, J. Emerging Investigators 2023, manuscript accepted). In parallel, Rosie expanded the lab’s use of fluorine NMR spectroscopy and made key contributions in using it, along with gas chromatography - mass spectrometry, to mechanistically probe the mechanism of the Ugi four-component reaction towards the synthetic preparation of a key building block for atorvastatin (Lipitor). Most recently, Rosie helped to spearhead an exceptionally challenging catalysis project on the optimization of cobalt (II) complexes as difluorocarbene and trifluoromethyl carbene transfer reagents for the preparation of fluorinated cyclopropanes, and is currently wrapping up a methods project on solvent effects on in situ generated trifluorodiazoethane stability. Over the last four years, Rosie has also over a dozen conference proceedings, including at the American Chemical Society National meeting (Spring ‘22 San Diego, Fall ‘22 Chicago, Spring ‘23 Indianapolis, Fall ‘24 SF) and an oral presentation delivered at SCCUR ‘22 (Pepperdine University), and has built up a very impressive list of research experiences from natural product total synthesis, catalyst optimization, and organometallic catalysis. This autumn, Rosie is off to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, majoring in Biophysics.

Adelina Chau (McMahan Lab)

Archbishop Mitty '24 | UC Berkeley '28

Adelina Chau - McMahan Lab (Archbishop Mitty High School ‘24) is a third year ASDRP student and a current member of Dr. McMahan’s research group. Adelina joined Dr. McMahan’s group as a sophomore, where she jumped straight into the opportunities presented in using machine learning and Hybrid Quantum-Classical Graph Generative Adversarial Networks (QNetGAN) to probe various questions related to quantum mechanical calculations such as Hartree Fock free energy calculations, perturbations to electronic structure in physical systems, etc. Recently, Adelina and co-workers published two papers - “Molecular Geometry Generation Processes Through Hybrid Quantum-Classical Generative Adversarial Networks and Python-Based Self-Consistent Field Molecular Calculations” (2023 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE) 2023, (Vol. 2, pp. 312-313). IEEE; and, “Hybrid Quantum-Classical Generative Adversarial Network for synthesizing chemically feasible molecules” (J. Emerging Investigators 2023, DOI: https://doi.org/10.59720/22-143), with more in review. Beyond being an exceptionally productive member of Dr. McMahan’s group, Adelina has been an outstanding leader, and has always been willing to help new members of the group get up to speed on project basics and on the basics of QNetGAN. This autumn, Adelina will be attending the University of California, Berkeley, double majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, and in business administration in the Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program.

Kimberly Khow (Njoo Lab)

Amador Valley '24 | UC Irvine '28

Kimberly Khow - Njoo Lab (Amador Valley High School ‘24) is a fourth year ASDRP student and current member of Dr. Njoo’s research group. Kimberly began her research career as a freshman in Nardeen Mikhail’s group (formerly in the Biology Department), where she eventually coauthored a paper “Detection and Control of Spoilage Fungi in Refrigerated Vegetables and Fruits” (J. Emerging Investigators 2021, DOI: https://doi.org/10.59720/20-188). Following this, in 2021, Kimberly spent a semester in Prabhjeet Kaur’s lab, where she worked on the identification of mycorrhizal fungi in urban garden soil. The following semester and at the end of her freshman year, Kimberly moved to the Chemistry department, where she worked under Raymond Chen in using high performance liquid chromatography to perform stability assays on natural products as pharmaceutical agents. Finally, at the end of her sophomore year, Kimberly joined Dr. Njoo’s group. In the Njoo lab, Kimberly was one of the first students to work on antibody-drug conjugation chemistry, and in collaboration with a biotechnology company that collaborates with Dr. Njoo, this technology has now evolved into preclinical studies for the treatment of metastatic, triple negative breast tumors. Concurrently, Kimberly worked on the synthesis of analogs of a natural product lignin called podophyllotoxin, and subsequently co-authored a paper describing initial structure-activity relationships of a systematic library of C-4 ester analogs in arresting cell division in colon cancer cells - “C-4 analogs of podophyllotoxin as tubulin inhibitors: Synthesis, biological evaluation, and structure-activity relationship” (ChemRXiv 2023, in review, Nat. Prod. Research, DOI: https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2023-d5lcg). Following this paper, Kimberly and others involved in the project subsequently expanded this initial SAR to nearly thirty novel carbonate and carbamate derivatives, the most recent of which were disclosed this last weekend (manuscript in progress). In parallel to these efforts, Kimberly also helped to lead a project in the Njoo lab on developing biodegradable plant-lipid based cationic lipids for targeted mRNA delivery with applications in vaccination chemistry. From the efforts of Kimberly and others in the project, the lead lipids from this study are now being studied for mRNA delivery in cancer vaccination with an industry collaborator. Finally, Kimberly played a key role in leading a project on using a DNA-labeling fluorophore, called amonafide, to develop the first series of amonafide-lipid conjugates for selective labeling of nucleic acid-lipid boundaries in cells. On top of this, over her time at ASDRP, Kimberly has been a co-presenter in multiple conference proceedings, including at the Southern California Conferences for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR, ‘22 & ‘23), and the American Chemical Society National Meeting (Fall ‘23 SF) and has acquired an exceptionally broad skill set in microbiology, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, organic synthesis, fluorescent imaging, RNA delivery, and medicinal chemistry. This autumn, Kimberly will be attending the University of California, Irvine, where she will be majoring in biochemistry.

2023 Senior Scholar Scientist
Sarah Su, Los Altos High '23
Njoo Group (Organic Chemistry)

Sarah joined ASDRP in her first semester of freshman year back in 2019, where she began research in the Njoo group in organic chemistry / chemical biology (www.njoolab.org). Today, 3+ years later, Sarah is an accomplished researcher with an impressive list of eight published/accepted original research peer-reviewed publications, one application note / white paper, seven conference proceedings / conference abstracts, and six oral presentations, and a research skill base in organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, computer modeling, NMR spectroscopy, and chemical biology that outmatches most undergraduates.

From her advisor:

The first project that Sarah worked on was on berberine, a bioactive isoquinoline alkaloid small molecule isolated from a plant whose therapeutic use in treating human disease dates back several centuries in ancient southeast Asia. A few years ago, we and others reported could act as a photosensitizer to excite ground state triplet oxygen into excited state triplet oxygen, thereby acting as photosensitizer for light-induced biological activity, and Sarah has published on this extensively [Photochemical analog (Sun, et al. JEI 2021); Initial antibacterial SAR (Sun, et al. JEI 2020)]. Specifically, Sarah led our first efforts on non-canonical uses of benchtop NMR spectroscopy to use benchtop NMR to quantify 1O2 by trapping it with a cyclic 1,3-diene to form [2.2.2]bicyclo endoperoxides, and we now have two publications on this, along with an application note co-developed with Nanalysis [App Note, Interview Video]. In parallel, Sarah has also grown a great deal of expertise in using computer modeling for understanding reactive intermediates and small molecule drug candidates (Link to Sarah's Ted Talk here), first in our use of DFT, TD-DFT, and MD in our computational SAR of berberine analogs as DNA-Gquad stabilizing agents (Sun/Ashok, et. al., JEI 2020), later in our SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitors project (Sun, et al., J. Res. HS 2020). When we transitioned the project to work on carmofur, a small molecule originally developed for colorectal cancer but later repurposed for SARS-CoV-2, Sarah was involved in a high throughput analog screen of novel carmofur analogs against wild type and mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2 (Luk, et al., manuscript accepted, 2022). Late in 2022, Sarah was part of a team that worked on our group’s flagship paper of the year, using 19F NMR spectroscopy for monitoring (Chen, et al. ChemRXiv 2022), specifically for tracking the reactive intermediates present in complex multicomponent reactions. This project was shared at STEM Week at Los Altos High School (Link to talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIJ-C1tVUbA) and is now under peer review for publication! Currently, Sarah works on several projects in the interface of chemical synthesis, chemical biology, catalysis, and small molecule drug discovery, including our development of difluorocyclopropanation catalyst strategies as well as using stereo- and regio-controlled inverse demand Diels Alder cycloadditions for construction of the tricyclic core of forskolin, a bioactive diterpenoid with therapeutic value in aging research.

A more detailed research profile outlining Sarah’s accomplishments:

SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Chen, Rosie; Singh, Pratyush; Su, Sarah; Kocalar, Selin; Wang, Xina; Mandava, Neha; Venkatesan, Srishti; Ferguson, Adrienne; Rao, Aishi; Le, Emma; Rojas, Casey; Njoo, Edward. “Benchtop 19F Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy Provides Mechanistic Insight into the Biginelli Condensation towards the Chemical Synthesis of Novel Trifluorinated Dihydro- and Tetrahydropyrimidinones as Antiproliferative Agents.” ChemRxiv 2022. DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv-2022-1371g-v2 URL: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/63905b9b04bc6600d60b2b1c
Su, Sarah*; Sri Indran, Karthikha*; Pal, Sohie; Le, Emma; Regan, Anika; Jain, Meher; Shah, Aashi; Iglesias, David; Wang, Andrew; Njoo, Edward. “Comparative singlet oxygen photosensitizer efficiency of berberine, rose bengal, and methylene blue by time course nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) monitoring of a photochemical 4+2 cycloaddition endoperoxide formation.” Journal of Emerging Investigators 2021, online. https://www.emerginginvestigators.org/articles/comparative-singlet-oxygen-photosensitizer-efficiency-of-berberine-rose-bengal-and-methylene-blue-by-time-course-nuclear-magnetic-resonance-nmr-monitoring-of-a-photochemical-4-2-cycloaddition-endoperoxide-formation/pdf
Su, Sarah; Le, Emma; Sri Indran, Karthikha; Pal, Sohie; Regan, Anika; Jain, Meher; Shah, Aashi; Njoo, Edward. “Comparative singlet oxygen production analysis of reduced berberine analogs via a 4+2 Diels Alder-like cycloaddition monitored using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy” Journal of Emerging Investigators, manuscript accepted.
Luk, Charissa; Nepani, Tvisha; Bhattercharjee, Shamita; Raman, Thoya; Avadhani, Udbhav; Su, Sarah; Raghavan, Shloka; Mandava, Neha; Chanda, Priya; Rao, Aishi; Wang, Xina; Shah, Aashi; Wu, Jeslyn; Njoo, Edward. “In silico screen of a library of carmofur analogs as potential inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease and its variants through homology modeling.” Journal of Research High School 2022, manuscript accepted, in press.
Sun Stephanie; Hamid, Saira; Su, Sarah; Su, Andrew; Ashok, Bhavesh; Njoo, Edward. "Strain-specific and photochemically-activated antimicrobial activity of berberine and two analogs" Journal of Emerging Investigators 2020, online. https://www.emerginginvestigators.org/articles/strain-specific-and-photochemically-activated-antimicrobial-activity-of-berberine-and-two-analogs
Sun, Stephanie; Su, Andrew; Sakhrani, Simran; Ashok, Bhavesh; Su, Sarah; Rajamanickam, Sarada; Njoo, Edward. “Comparative screening of dose-dependent and strain-specific antimicrobial efficacy of berberine against a representative library of broad spectrum antibiotics." Journal of Emerging Investigators 2020, online.https://www.emerginginvestigators.org/articles/comparative-screening-of-dose-dependent-and-strain-specific-antimicrobial-efficacy-of-berberine-against-a-representative-library-of-broad-spectrum-antibiotics/pdf
Sun, Stephanie; Anand, Kavya; Ashok, Bhavesh; Ashok, Ishani; Bajaj, Ayush; Beldona, Varsha; Chattopadhyay, Kushal; Kwan, Audrey; Mageswaran, Karan; Surapaneni, Anvi; Surapaneni, Atri; Verma, Pranjal; Chen, Allen; Kolala, Ria; Liang, Andrew; Poosarla, Ayeeshi; Premnath, Krithikaa; Sri Indran, Karthikha; Wu, Jeslyn; Yuvaraj, Aishwarya; Raj, Harsha; Sathish, Tanish; Shah, Aashi; Su, Sarah; Tran, Kara; Njoo, Edward. "Reactivity-guided de novo molecular design and high throughput virtual screening of a targeted library of peptidomimetic compounds reveals charge-based structure-activity relationship of potential covalent inhibitors of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2." Journal of Student Research 2020, 9(2), 1082. https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v9i2.1082 https://www.jofsr.org/hs/index.php/path/article/view/1082
Sun, Stephanie; Ashok, Bhavesh; Su, Andrew; Hamid, Saira; Sri Indran, Karthikha; Shah, Aashi; Su, Sarah; Sakhrani, Simran; Njoo, Edward. "Computational structure-activity relationship (SAR) of berberine analogs reveals both position- and target-dependence in double stranded and G-quadruplex DNA binding." Journal of Emerging Investigators 2020, online.https://www.emerginginvestigators.org/articles/computational-structure-activity-relationship-sar-of-berberine-analogs-in-double-stranded-and-g-quadruplex-dna-binding-reveals-both-position-and-target-dependence

TECHNICAL PAPERS / WHITE PAPERS

Sarah Su, “Quantitative analysis of singlet oxygen production via a 4+2 endoperoxide cycloaddition by 1H benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy,” Application note co-developed with Nanalysis Corp. Link

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Sarah Su, Emma Le, Meher Jain, Pratyush Singh, Alivia Zhang, Aashi Shah, Anushka Peer, Shelley Li, “Chemical synthesis and ex-vivo evaluation of berberine analogs as DNA-binding singlet oxygen photosensitizers” Proceedings of the Spring 2022 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (San Diego, CA).
Sarah Su*, Emma Le*, “Semisynthesis and Structure Activity Relationship of Novel Berberine Analogs as DNA-Binding Singlet Oxygen Photosensitizers” Virtual Southern California Conferences for Undergraduate Research (2021)
Sarah Su, Emma Le, Meher Jain, Pratyush Singh, Alivia Zhang, Karthikha Sri Indran, Sohie Pal, Aashi Shah, Sanhita Nittala, Edward Njoo, “Chemical Synthesis and Ex-Vivo Evaluation of Berberine Analogs as DNA-Binding Singlet Oxygen Photosensitizers” Virtual Southern California Conferences for Undergraduate Research (2021)
Sarah Su*, Karthikha Sri Indran*, Sohie Pal, Emma Le, Anika Regan, Meher Jain, Aashi Shah, David Iglesias, Andrew Wang, Edward Njoo, “Comparative singlet oxygen photosensitizer efficiency of berberine, rose bengal, and methylene blue by time course nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) monitoring of a photochemical 4+2 cycloaddition endoperoxide formation” Virtual CSUCI Student Research Conference (2021)
Charissa Luk, Xina Wang, Neha Mandava, Udbhav Avadhani, Emma Le, Julia Vu, Sarah Su, Jane Wu, Ananya Anand, Aashi Shah, Shloka Raghavan, Darshita Prathap, Aishi Rao, Jeslyn Wu, Anushka Peer, Priya Chanda, “In silico and in vitro screening and 19F-NMR enabled kinetic studies towards the synthesis and optimization of a library of carmofur analogs as potential covalent inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease and its variants” Proceedings of the Spring 2022 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (San Diego, CA).
Pratyush Singh, Rosie Chen, Sarah Su, Xina Wang, Srishti Venkatesan, Adrienne Ferguson, “Benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy enables mechanistic insight of the Biginelli cyclocondensation in the synthesis of novel trifluorinated 2,4-dihydropyrimidine and tetrahydropyrimidine compounds as antiproliferative agents” Proceedings of the Fall 2022 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (Chicago, IL).
Keira Chatwin, Sarah Su, Edward Njoo, “Construction of the tricyclic core of Forskolin through a controlled 4+2 cycloaddition and 31P NMR based enzyme studies towards the discovery of simplified natural product-inspired adenylyl cyclase activators.” Accepted, Proceedings of the Spring 2023 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (Indianapolis, IN)

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Sarah Su, “Benchtop NMR spectroscopy provides mechanistic insight into the Biginelli condensation towards the synthesis of novel trifluorinated pyrimidine compounds as antiproliferative agents.” LAHS STEAM Week Speaker Series (2022).
Sarah Su*, Karthikha Sri Indran*, Sohie Pal, Emma Le, Anika Regan, Meher Jain, Aashi Shah, David Iglesias, Andrew Wang, Edward Njoo, “Comparative singlet oxygen photosensitizer efficiency of berberine, rose bengal, and methylene blue by time course nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) monitoring of a photochemical 4+2 cycloaddition endoperoxide formation” Virtual CSUCI Student Research Conference (2021)
Sarah Su, Aishi Rao, Jeslyn Wu, Edward Njoo, “1H and 19F qNMR on benchtop – pedagogical insight and research applications in real time reaction monitoring, analytical spectroscopy, and small molecule synthesis” ValidNMR Virtual Symposium Series (2021)
Sarah Su, “Semisynthesis and Structure Activity Relationship of Novel Berberine Analogs as DNA-Binding Singlet Oxygen Photosensitizers.” ASDRP Colloquium (2021)
Sarah Su*, Emma Le*, “Semisynthesis and Structure Activity Relationship of Novel Berberine Analogs as DNA-Binding Singlet Oxygen Photosensitizers” Virtual Southern California Conferences for Undergraduate Research (2021)
Sarah Su, “The Future of Medicine: Computational Chemistry.” LAHS TedX Series (2021).

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Laboratory Analytical & Instrumentation Skills

● Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Multistep synthesis

● Standard techniques in experimental organic chemistry: Recrystallization, thin layer chromatography, extractions, distillations, silica flash chromatography

● Flash Column Chromatography

● Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (Experienced with 1D 1H, 13C, 19F, 31P, and JRES, COSY, HSQC, HMBC, APT, BIRD, HETCOR, DEPT, CPMG, T1, T2 / Hahn-Echo experiments)

● Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) Method Development & Usage

● High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) Method Development & Usage

● Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)

● Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR)

● UV Visible Spectroscopy (UV-vis)

● Bacteria Cell Culture

● Cancer Cell Culture

● Cell Viability Assays (MTT, FDA, etc.)

● SDS Page

Tools & Technologies

● Java

● Linux/Unix Shell Scripting

● QM Calculations: Density Functional Theory (DFT), Time Dependent Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT), Hartree Fock (HF)

● Molecular Docking

● Molecular Dynamics

● Familiar with MestreNova, OpenChrom, OpenMS, AutoDock Vina, UCSF Chimera, ChimeraX, PyMol, GROMACS, Avogadro, ORCA software