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Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten and her research team received instrument time at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Samples were prepared at Hamilton by Kim Bogardus ’14, Jeremy Brendle ’14 and  Cotten and sent to collaborator Prof. Ella Mihailescu for analysis on MAGIK, a world-class instrument dedicated to me

Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten attended the 57th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in Philadelphia and served as a panelist for a session titled “Funding Opportunities for Faculty at Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions.”

Kimberly Bogardus ’14, Leah Cairns ’13, Lennox Chitsike ’13 and Akritee Shrestha ’13 presented posters at the 57th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting that took place Feb. 2-6 in Philadelphia. They presented results obtained in the research laboratory of Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten. The presentations were part of sessions on “Membrane Active Peptides and Toxins.”

Three Hamilton College faculty members were approved for tenure by the College’s Board of Trustees during a recent meeting. The Board granted tenure to Wei-Jen Chang (biology), Myriam Cotten (chemistry) and Heather Merrill (Africana studies).

Hamilton hosted the annual meeting of MAALACT, the Middle Atlantic Association of Liberal Arts Chemsitry Teachers, on Oct. 7-8. Founded in 1967, the organization includes chemistry faculty from liberal arts colleges in the Middle Atlantic states and eastern N.Y. that gather yearly to discuss a variety of curricular matters, laboratory safety, how to get grants and other matters of interest.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten presented a poster at the 7th Alpine Conference on Solid-State NMR in Chamonix, France, Sept. 11-15.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten with students Matt Baxter ’11 and Jason McGavin ’12  published an article in the Sept. 7, vol. 105 issue of the Biophysical Journal. The paper titled “Amphipathic Antimicrobial Piscidin in Magnetically Aligned Lipid Bilayers” is also co-authored by Professor Stanley Opella, from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), and members of his research team.

Piscidin is an antimicrobial peptide found in hybrid striped bass which binds to cell membranes in order to destroy them. Victoria Bogen ’14, Robert Hayden ’14, Akritee Shrestha ’13, Leah Cairns ’13 and Christopher Rider ’12 are working with Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten to conduct research on piscidin. Their research aims to solve the peptide’s structure and behavior in various conditions.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten and her team of Hamilton students spent 10 days this summer at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fla., to study piscidin, antimicrobial peptides from fish. The team, comprised of Caitlin Burzynski ’12, Nina Kraus '13, Cotten, and Alex Dao ’12, used several state-of-the-art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) instruments to obtain atomic-level information on samples of piscidin bound to lipid bilayers that mimic bacterial membranes.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Myriam Cotten recently participated in a Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) annual business meeting that gathered councilors from diverse academic disciplines at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. Cotten contributed to two workshops as part of the national meeting that followed the business meeting.