Ivan Pires selected for national research symposium
Ivan Susin-Pires, an undergraduate in Professor Andre Palmer’s lab, continues to receive recognition for his research in blood-derived therapeutics. Pires was selected to participate in the highly-competitive Future Leaders in Chemical Engineering Symposium at NC State. The symposium invites the top ~15 undergraduate researchers in the United States for a 1.5 day, all-expenses paid research symposium, which was held on October 21-22, 2018.
Pires gave a presentation on his first publication: I. S. Pires, D. Belcher, A. F. Palmer, “Quantification of Active Apohemoglobin Heme-Binding Sites via Dicyanohemin Incorporation," 56: 5245-5259 Biochemistry (2017).
Apohemoglobin (apoHb) is produced by removing the heme groups from hemoglobin, the oxygen storage and transport protein of blood. The apoHb protein has potential to be used as a drug carrier and heme detector for biomedical applications. Ivan’s work sought to determine how many of the apoHb “pockets” were available to bind the desired molecules of interest to optimize manufacturing of apoHb-drug complexes.
Pires originally thought of the concept in 2016 while conducting research on an Undergraduate Research Office Summer Research Fellowship in Dr. Palmer’s lab, where he worked on perfecting hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs) for applications in transfusion medicine.
Pires, who was awarded a Pelotonia Research Fellowship in 2017, received first prize in last spring's university-wide Denman Undergraduate Research Forum, as well as first place in the Eighth Annual College of Engineering Undergraduate Research Forum for Engineering and Architecture. Earlier this year, he was one of two students to receive the Student Recognition Award from The Ohio State University Board of Trustees, and was also selected as one of eight undergrads to represent Ohio State at the annual SIICUSP Undergraduate Research Meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil both this year and last.
In notifying Ivan of his award, symposium chair Michael Dickey of the North Carolina State University department of chemical engineering stated that there had been an overwhelming number of outstanding applications and that being selected meant that Pires was among the "best-of-the-best."
Pires’ long-term goals include pursuing a career in academic research in bio-pharmaceutical process development.
