Apryl Saunders Accepted to Summer REU at University of Oklahoma

2015 Jun 3

Apryl Saunders , a Chemistry and Biomedical Chemistry double major from Harrah , OK, was accepted to a summer REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates, a program funded by the National Science Foundation) at the University of Oklahoma, a large public research institution in Norman, OK.

Saunders will participate in an REU in Structural Biology focusing on proteins, a diverse field with many applications, such as antibacterial medicine. She is one of 10 students accepted to this OU program from schools across the country, including institutions in California, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. There are many areas of study open to these students, including enzyme structure and function.

After she graduates from Kansas Wesleyan, Saunders wants to attend graduate school at the University of Oklahoma and eventually to apply to medical school at OU's Oklahoma School of Medicine in Oklahoma City. In addition to her passion for learning in the laboratory, she has a personal reason for wanting to get into the medical field on the research side.

"My mom has M.S., Multiple Sclerosis, and I want to help with research on that," she said.

Last summer, Saunders was one of three KWU students able to participate in lab-based research for six weeks at the University of Nottingham-Trent in England. The university has four laboratories, including a Chemistry lab with high-tech equipment. Drawing from her experience of studying carbon-hydrogen bond activation, she presented a scholarly paper at The Best of KWU in February 2015 entitled "Investigation of C-H Activation at Saturated Carbons." C-H activation can be applied in various fields, including materials science and pharmaceuticals.