Attending the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in New Orleans was an informative experience. While it was my first poster session at a National Meeting, it was enjoyable to see others walk up to my poster and interact with them on a one on one basis. What seemed to be a tedious routine at first, turned out to be an interesting conversation on other glioblastoma treatments, such as cell receptor antagonists. I also received advice on how to improve my poster, specifically including an image of the drug molecule I worked with, something I had not received before in my usual Powerpoint presentations.

Unfortunately, to be honest, not many people attend our poster session, I guess because it was 7 to 9 pm. By 8 pm the crowd sort of dried out, but this gave me the opportunity to walk around and see the research posters of others. There was a specific poster I stopped by from a Kean University in New Jersey, where they worked with glioblastomas as well, but through a completely different experimental procedure. They specifically worked on designing a synthetic compound with predicted brain penetration. While it was unsure how the binding took place, the suppression of the receptor can lead to chemotaxis of cancer cells. This just goes to show how versatile even one specific branch of science could be in the world of medicine.

Besides the poster sessions, I sat in some talks, including that of my own mentors, Dr. Ayala Lampel, who was presenting on our current research project on synthetic melanin created by the tripeptides sequence, KYF. I also sat in a talk by my General Chemistry professor at Lehman, Dr. Donna McGregor. Her talk was on the Flipped Classroom model that focused on better methods of teaching Chemistry education to students, rather than the common, not very effective, lecture-style classes. She expressed the need for professors to encourage students to take the classroom outside the classroom and into their homes. It involved watching some videos at home and doing practice problems and bring that knowledge to class for a clicker session (answering questions in class with the use of a clicker basically).

Sana and I also attended the Career Expo, which had a number of instrumental companies, textbook companies, and drug development programs, along with a lot of freebies. It was a great time to network and learn about all the companies, that are out there recruiting for jobs, rather than what I mainly focused on R&D (Research & Development). I wish we could have attended the SciMix, which was a mixer for undergraduate students to network amongst ourselves, as well as learn about the opportunities other students, like ourselves have taken, and the paths that led them there. Other than that, we decided to opt out of the lecture series. However, I personally regretted not attending some of the career development workshops offered by ACS.

When we were not at the conference, Sana and I were exploring around. The weather was lovely and the food was so rich in flavor. We were able to visit the famous Café du Monde, home of the beignets!

We also walked around Bourbon Street, trying not to step in the questionable puddles of urine or vomit near the bars. I think it was really nice to walk along the riverfront of the Mississippi River and to just take in the culture and beauty of New Orleans.

Nonetheless, I would definitely want to go back to attend the Museum of Pharmacy, that showcased 19th-century apothecary exhibitions, and Museum of Death, which had a range of collection of oddities.