Chico State summer chemistry program provides real-world research

By Ashley Gebb

agebb@chicoer.com @ashleygebb on Twitter

CHICO >> Perhaps it's the opportunity to work on complex machinery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Maybe it's cool factor of long white lab coats embroidered with their names and "CSRI" Chemistry Summer Research Institute.

But more likely is the fact it's the summer education of a lifetime that spurred three Chico high schoolers and 10 Chico State University students to take advantage of a 10-week program where they try to solve real-world problems with applied science.

"It's a lot of fun," said Hanne Henriksen, a Pleasant Valley High senior. "It's research and we don't know what's to come of it. It's not like pass or fail, you did it or you didn't. It's learning new things every day."

The projects are varied, depending on interests of the overseeing faculty. One group is developing a more environmentally friendly reaction for pharmaceutical compounds while one makes plastic bags from sugar beets and another develops a process for inhibiting a protein often found in cancer.

For Trevor Trombley, a senior at Chico High School, the summer program taps into his passion for chemistry.

"I like how it's structured and follows a set of rules," he said. "Just doing math wasn't enough. I want to use it to solve real-world problems and get real-world answers."

That's exactly what he hopes to do with his research under the guidance of Professor Dan Edwards. They are weakening eight different antibiotics and injecting them with bacteria to see what the components trigger, spending their days growing samples in an incubator and analyzing them.

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Chico State summer chemistry program provides real-world research